Saturday, February 7, 2009

The [insert an intangible here] was so thick, you could cut it with a knife.


The other day I saw something similar to this:



At first glance my instinct is to think "how cah-uuuuute" or "My, God. That's A-dor-ABLE" in my best falsetto. Or my best "valley girl" impersonation. Is that still a meaningful phrase? Valley girl? I feel like that term may have died sometime in the mid-90's and I never got the memo. Either way, you understand. That's my first impression of seeing a dog in a sweater. I can remember with one of the dogs I owned as a very young Chuck, I was always trying to tie a handkerchief around its neck because I thought it looked cool, but that dog would always take it off. Come to think of it, I really loved that dog. If only I had saved some DNA from it. But seeing something like a dog wearing a sweater could really get you thinking about just how crazy people who are fanatical about pets are.

I was at work last week, I believe, when we had a customer come in with a hideous little dog. In not so many words it was more like a larger and more furry version of a rat. I wouldn't have been surprised if it WAS a rat. The customer came in by herself - carrying this lame excuse for a dog. And she set the dog down on a chair and for the next few minutes petted it and reassured it that she would in fact be coming back.

This infuriated me.

To describe the woman to the best of my memory, she was mid-30's I'd suspect. She was chubby - which included having a spare tire and a second ass where a vagina is supposed to be. She was fairly tall - probably around 5'10" or so, and I might be making this up but I'm pretty sure she had a bad perm. And I'd put money on it that she played the online game "Second Life".

Back to the infuriation. I've only as of recently discovered just how cynical I really am. I use the word "hate" a lot. Almost as much as I use the word "pizza" or "Blue Bell Cookies and Cream Ice Cream". And this woman, I hated. She treated her ugly mutt like it was her child and this is 1) sad and pathetic to watch and 2) ridiculous. 

I hate fanaticism. I can't stand when people are overly excited about any one particular thing. Don't ask me why. It's just how I'm wired.

So after watching this woman talk baby talk to this ugly dog for a few minutes I was hoping that she would spontaneously combust on her way to the cash register.

I'm sorry. Let me backtrack a tad because first of all what the hell is this woman doing coming into a mediocre-at-best pizza place with a dog? I asked the manager about it. Apparently, they had inquired about it in the past. [The woman is a regular customer. Hence the ass in front that she has.] Apparently she has a card that she carries around that says the dog is a service dog. It's a "therapy dog". What a crock of shit.

One thing that I never understood is pet food. There is an entire aisle for it at grocery stores. There's dozens of different brands. And I don't get why the labels are so competitive with one another. They've got photographs of happy pets on them. Bright colors. And here's the thing that really chaps my ass: some of the descriptions of the pet food, if didn't know any better, would sound like a tasty meal for a human. Just who are they trying to impress? Certainly the pets themselves don't give a damn. They'll eat anything. If it were up to me, all pet food would come in a can with a brown label that simply said "Dog Food" or "Cat Food". I think it's crazy to watch people struggle over which brand of pet food to buy as if their pet is going to be happier or sadder depending on what you pick. That would be a funny thing to watch, though. To see a dog throwing cans of dog food against the front door and yelling about how pissed they are about the selection. And telling the owner to get their ass right back in their car and pick up some decent food "for crying out loud".

On the subject of fanaticism and pets, I wanted to touch base on two more points of interest. And at this point I've got to apologize for the length of this post, but when I've got the "coffee house playlist" on in the background and I start to think about pet fanaticism, I can really go off on a rant. So two more points: veterinarians and cloning.

If your dog has a broken leg, then by all means please take it to the vet and have a doggy cast put on it. If your dog is suffering from some crazy disease that requires a lifetime of prescribed medicine and therapy that adds up to enough money to put a kid through college, then have that dog put to sleep. That's all I'll say about that. And I think you get the point I'm trying to make.

I was reading the headlines from MSN and came across this. A couple that lives in south Florida had their yellow labrador retriever cloned after it's death for $155,000! There's lots of things wrong with this. First and foremost, $155,000 would be enough to turn around my miserable excuse of an existence and help me accomplish my life goals - or anyone for that matter. That's a shit ton of money. And the part that kills me the most is that every fucking yellow labrador looks the same anyway! What the hell? These people make me sick. 

I read another story about this same couple and cloning and all where the interviewer asked them how they felt about spending so much money on something like this when the economy right now is putting a lot of people out of work and in dire positions. And the answer that the guy gave made me want to hit him over the head repeatedly with a hammer - or just something blunt. He said that they "didn't worry about money at all and that he had in a way hit the lottery being as his grandfather was one of the founders of NASCAR". First of all: NASCAR is fucking stupid. That's a different blog for a different day. And second of all, what a total piece of shit to be so unsympathetic to the situation that our country and economy is in. A hammer would do nicely.

I don't want anyone to read this and think "Chuck hates pets". That wasn't the point I was trying to make. I love pets. I love dogs, I should say. Cats are another story. I wouldn't say hate, but I certainly wouldn't say "like". Pets are great, but I don't ever want to be fanatical about it. There's actually people out there who value "animal's rights" (which is an oxymoron ) over human rights. And that makes me angry as well. Stupid PETA. Stupid hippie assholes. But again, that'd be another blog for another day.



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting blog you've got here, Chuck. Pets, relationships, pizza tips...

We should get together for a beer sometime at Mothers.

Simply Chuck said...

Well, Anonymous - if you know me and you know me well, then you would know that in the past I would say "Yeah! Great! I love Mother's!"

But because of an incident and a damn near fist fight with the owner a few months ago, I'm on a complete boycott of the place.

Maybe we could go to Stubbies or Hogan's instead.

Whatdya' say, Anonymous?

Dave said...

Hey Chuck, just wanted to introduce myself formally. Saw you follow my blog; I appreciate that. I'll try not to suck.

And your quote, "Stupid PETA. Stupid hippie assholes..." made me laugh. Well-spoken, sir.

--Dave
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