The Castration Of America

I grew up in a house with pets. I always remember having a dog and a couple of cats running around from room to room, up the stairs and down, and off into the corner of the living room not stopping until the fat cat meowed for mercy. I have a lot of great memories of my childhood pets and I still like pets. However there are limits that when exceeded I cease to understand the people that coddle their animals.

Now, this whole post was sparked by a story I read about an Oregon couple that called 911 when their cat chased them into a bedroom. Here is the series of events as recorded by the Associated Press (and the 911 recording which is included in the Good Morning America clip):

Palmer says the animal attacked his 7-month-old child after the baby pulled its tail. The child suffered a few scratches on the forehead.

On the 911 call, Palmer tells the dispatcher he kicked the cat "in the rear" to protect his child. Palmer says the animal then "just went off over the edge" — leading Palmer and his girlfriend to barricade themselves, their baby and the family dog in the bedroom for safety.

The cat can be heard screeching in the background of the call as Palmer says in a panicked voice: "He's charging us. He's at our bedroom door." Palmer also tells the dispatcher the cat has been violent in the past.

But here is the real “I s**t you not” aspect of this whole thing, now they are going to hire a therapist for the cat. It wasn’t bad enough that you don’t have the sack to take care of the problem yourself and had to call 911 but now, instead of getting rid of the animal that attacked your child, you are going to pay a therapist to threat the cat for its aggression. I am certain that a therapist is needed in that house and it is definitely not for the cat.

This might be worse than the people who spends thousands and thousands of dollars to extend an animal’s life a few weeks or those that insist on cooking for their pet when they can’t even cook for themselves. This raises the WTF bar in the pet category to a height that I don’t think will be surpassed for a very long time. While this may be acceptable to the fur loving PETA people living in a bubby floating about ten thousand miles to the left of Obama.

This is not normal people. If you sink that much of your financial security into a pet, you have too much money. When you find yourself spending a half our cooking a balanced meal for your cat while you hammer down a Big Mac please see a therapist. If you think spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on your dog so that it will have an additional miserable month of life is normal please do not get another pet. The only thing worse than seeing a pet die is seeing the look in their eyes like they want to die.

But if you need to call 911 because your cat is charging you and hissing at you, you need to grow a set and stop relying on authorities to take care of all your problems for you. Your problems are much deeper than the threat a 22 pound animal poses. Your problem is that ‘you have no marble’ and have no idea what it is like to be self-reliant. You have a serious issue and should probably consider the fact that your actions (or lack thereof) are occupying the time of people who are employed to help others in need not serve the needs of the nutless.

Remember, Bob Barker told you have your pet spayed or neutered. He didn’t tell you to get neutered. Listen a little closer next time and we might not have these kinds of problems.

Look, It’s A Happy Tree!

Today reminded me of those cold winter days from childhood when school is closed an you have free reign of the house. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, I was able to make it to work this morning with little difficulty. It may have been a slow journey with idiots on the road that don’t know how to drive in the snow but those same people can’t drive when the roads are clear so it wasn’t much of a difference.

While I was not able to partake in such lack of activity, the white landscape made me recall such memories. Many of you remember those same mornings watching Bob Barker put some shady moves on his beauties (by the way, happy 90^th Bob) just before ABC news at noon would tell you that Armageddon is upon us and we should all start coming to terms with our life and our G-d. But that was just a fleeting thought from those antsy days. The real entertainment didn’t begin until the afternoon.

When were much younger those afternoon hours were filled with cartoons or Sesame Street or a stroll through Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. A few years later it turned into Gilligan’s Island and Hogan’s Heroes mini marathons with the occasional sojourn with the Addams Family or the Munsters. But, inevitably, there was a time during those school days when there was a show so fascinating that you could watch episode after episode until the sky turned dark.

 

Some of you may not remember but Bob Ross was like snow day crack for those of us of a certain age. For some reason we could watch him paint, yes I said paint, for hours at a time. Happy tree after happy tree we could never understand the appeal but, at the same time, couldn’t take our eyes off of the screen. It all seemed so easy but we didn’t, at least those of us with an absence of artistic ability, know how to do it. We may have tried from time to time but our trees seemed more like a Dali inspired Rorschach test rather than happy.

But, years later, I think I have finally figured out why it was, and to a certain extent still is, so entertaining… it is a legal mellowness. Simply watching this guy for thirty minutes will get you high by association which makes sense because he seems higher than Jim Henson when he created Fraggle Rock during every episode. That is the only explanation for the fact that “happy trees” seeming like a logical description. This might be why the “just say no” campaign was so successful at the time… everyone was watching Bob Ross on PBS and didn’t need it.  

So, if you need to mellow, sit down and relax. Light a scented candle, grab a pile of snacks, and

watch Bob Ross. I can feel my eyes getting blood shot already. Just make sure you don’t have to drive anywhere for at least twelve hours afterward of you might find yourself being one of those idiots on the road that doesn’t know how to drive.