The Truth About Meerkats

so I'm reading about meerkats
because there's just something I like about them
and I find out they belong to the mongoose family
which seems strange, because meerkats are pretty cute
while mongooses seem pretty nasty
but then I remember Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
who seemed nice enough
except to cobras
but he was just a character in a story
by the guy who wrote Gunga Din
so anyway, I find out meerkats sometimes share their burrows
with yellow mongooses
which are sometimes called red meerkats
and I wonder whether they like being labelled
and then I think maybe meerkats invite yellow mongooses
into their homes so they can treat them
the way the British soldiers treated Gunga Din
and if they do, what does that say about meerkats?
and, because we think they are so damned cute,
what does that say about us?