Entry 19: Pets and the Word of the Week

Welcome back ladies and gentleman! One of my resolutions this year was to post on a more regular basis. So far I’ve managed at least one a week and hopefully I’ll be in full swing shortly. This week I struggled with things to talk about so I asked my readers to prompt me with ideas. Some of you (2) responded. Thanks! Without you I probably wouldn’t have an entry today. Based on one of the suggestions I’ve decided to move my future posts to a different schedule. Thursday will now feature my dedicated, 2 topic, weekly post. Monday will continue to feature the Mini-Rant. “What about Wednesday?” you ask, and rightfully so. Next week will be the first official “Word of the Week Wednesday.” During this segment I will describe a word, and what that word means to me, without actually using it. I will then rely on your responses to determine what word comes to your mind. Hopefully by asking you to describe one word I’ll receive a larger degree of feedback that I can use as a catapult for other topics. This week I’ll give you a teaser and describe a word. All that I ask is that everyone who views that segment puts their guess at the word in the comments section, either here or on Facebook. I’ll post what word I had in mind on my Facebook page on Saturday. Alright! On to the meat and potatoes. (Jeez that was a long intro [I’m sorry])

Growing up I had numerous pets. Most of them I, unfortunately, neglected. I had dogs I didn’t train and goldfish I didn’t feed.  This leads me to one conclusion: I am not a very good pet owner. That being said, pets are something that are near and dear to the hearts of a lot of people. They can double as pest control, hunting partners, and even emotional support for those with mental issues. Cats eat mice, dogs retrieve ducks and penguins (yes people have pet penguins, and for the record, if I ever have a pet, that’s what I want) just freaking rock. Then there are these people.

Uhh… why is that dog wearing clothing? Pretty sure the only reason humans developed clothing was because we lacked fur… which… dogs already… have. Seriously? That’s just the first picture… the precious pups in pic’s 2 and 3 have… jewelry. Ok I’m not an expert in “bling” but I’m pretty sure the dog doesn’t give 2… something’s… about how shiny their collar is. First… people put clothes (an unnecessary burden given the presence of fur) and jewels around their necks and on their bodies. I don’t care if they’re diamonds or glass around that corgi’s neck… there is still a high chance that he will eat his own barf. Bedazzle that why don’t ya?

Alright! The first official “Word of the Week.” The idea here is that I’ll describe a word without actually using the word and you, as the reader, comment either here or on Facebook what your guess of the word might be. Also, for the one person who knows the first word, don’t spoil it for the rest please and thank you. 😀 Alright here we go. This word isn’t an exclusively human attribute, surprisingly. The prime example that comes to mind is the story of the dog in England whose owner passed away. The dog used to walk with his owner to the train station the owner used to commute to his job every day. The dog would then return home for a period of time. Nearing the time of his owner’s return, the dog would walk back to the station and await his owner’s arrival. After the owner passed away, the dog continued this ritual for quite some time. He didn’t go when his owner was supposed to leave because his owner wasn’t there to lead him but he would return around the time his owner should have arrived at the train station. “Why would the dog do this?” you may ask; because of the word I have in mind. Another example I can use, one that is more human, is when someone asks for “thoughts and prayers.” When you think about it, and I mean REALLY think about it, wouldn’t you rather have vaccines and surgeries before thoughts and prayers. Hear me out; vaccines, surgeries, pills, patches. These are all tangible things. Real things that exist in the world. When is the last time you saw a thought or a prayer? Thought bubbles exist in comics but in the real world thoughts are personal and outside of our own thoughts, we have no knowledge of what someone else is thinking. Yet this idea that positive thoughts and prayers can have a physical and realistic impact on what happens still persists. We have come to believe that positive thoughts and wishes of others can affect the real/physical world.  Why do we believe this? Why do we think that the intangibles of other’s can enhance our own place in life? The word I’m thinking of can answer that. There is one word that can explain this paragraph. Do you know what that word is?

Believe it or not I’ve just conceived a new weekly entry. Follow Up Friday. Friday will be the day I reveal what word I was thinking of on Wednesday and what my definition of that word is. So let’s see what we’ve got: Monday Mini-Rant, Word of the Week Wednesday, Weekly Entry Thursday, and Follow Up Friday. That’s a tall order to fill… stayed tuned, the schedule is subject to change. That being said, thank you to everyone who was able to trudge through my ramblings. I hope you enjoy the new segment and I look forward to hearing your reactions as to what word I had in mind. I appreciate any and all feedback. Anyone who has made it this far is awesome and deserves a high five. *HIGH FIVE*

Monday Mini-Rant: Overreacting

This Rant isn’t going to be as “Mini” as most other Monday ones but don’t let that scare you off. Here goes nothing. Being a retail worker I see plenty of overreactions by both customers and associates.”It said $2.49 not $2.99! Let me talk to someone who knows what they’re doing in this place!!” Not an exaggeration by the way. “This schedule says I was supposed to start at 8 but the one in the back (which everyone knows to follow, which this individual did) says 7! Why can’t she ever get them to match!?” Dude it’s an hour and you showed up on time. Get over it. Then there’s this guy (I encourage you to watch this AFTER you finish reading):  http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/13/justice/florida-movie-theater-shooting/?hpt=zite_zite3_featured Here’s the scene. A man is texting his daughter during the previews of a movie. The previews, mind you, the article doesn’t say how long his texting continued; personally, I wouldn’t care one bit about someone texting during THE PREVIEWS!! Anyways, the man behind the public nuisance that is the texting father is confronted by a 71 year old, former police officer. Voices were raised and the tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife (or so I’m told by my own mental imagining of the incident) The man disturbed by the texter leaves to find a member of management to complain and hopefully resolve the situation without further incident. The man returns with no employee in tow. Ok… maybe the man has calmed down. Maybe the father has stopped texting. Let’s sit back and see what happens… Paraphrase: “Did you go and tattle on me? I was just texting my daughter.” Elderly gentleman throws popcorn, or dad does, the article doesn’t say. Event 1, event 2, event 3; everyone leaves or goes to another seat or agrees to disagree and everyone enjoys a nice flick minus the popcorn throwing and texting right? Absolutely not. What ends up happening? Before you ask, no, I did not make this up. The 71 year old FORMER POLICE OFFICER pulls a GUN and shoots the dad!!! What. Thee. ACTUAL. @#$% Hold on, a man was SHOT because he was TEXTING during the PREVIEWS of a movie?!?! It’s stuff like this that keeps the “get guns out of everywhere forever” debate going. Not only was the father shot, but his wife was as well. The elderly gentleman then sat down, placed his gone in his lap, and acted like nothing happened. The crowd reacts the way they should. One attendee just happens to be an off duty police officer. He ensures that the threat to everyone else in the theater is neutralized. People disperse and flee but there also happen to be 2 nurses in the theater as well, who are now attending to the gunshot victims making sure they’re ok. They aren’t. The father was in fact killed. KILLED!!!! A man was murdered because he was texting during the previews of a movie. I’m not sure what the wound to the wife makes this but… well… I’ll just explain it. She was shot in the hand. Definitely non-fatal. The hand that she had placed over the wound from the first shot. So… this father was double-tapped?!?! (Double-tapped is a reference to the movie Zombieland in which you shoot something twice to ensure that you’ve killed it)I don’t… I really have no idea what I can even say about this. A man lost his life because he was texting during the previews of a movie. If that doesn’t tell you that SOMETHING is wrong with society then well… honestly I don’t even know.  I am at a loss for words. Even though I’m not an opponent of the death penalty, I’ve never actually wished for it to exist somewhere as much as I do right now. The day a man gets shot because he was texting is the same day I lose almost all faith in humanity. It does give extra weight to the “Please turn off all electronic devices for the consideration of other” line they throw on every movie screen. One final note, the “prohibited items and actions” section of their website includes “No cell phone use, including texting, in the theater auditorium.” and “no weapons allowed.” So the next time you think about arguing over 50 cents or shooting someone in a movie theater because their screen annoys you… you might want to take a step back. My thoughts and prayers are with the Oulson family. They’ve suffered a tragedy that should have never occurred and one that has virtually no explanation.

Entry 18: Phil Robertson and Family

Well the year is now 2014 and welcome back to my little pet project! I say pet project because I’ve been too lazy to regularly update like… I… promised. Never fear! I’ve been hurranged into writing again and a few people actually griped about me not staying true to my word about posting regularly. With that in mind, let’s kick off 2014 with a bang! By bang I mean all of the hub ubb surrounding Duck Dynasty and one Phillip Robertson.

Phil Robertson did an interview with GQ magazine (who might be the real winners in this whole ordeal.. when was the last time they were relevant?) during which he made a few pointed remarks. Remarks that got under some skin in some places. The leading question, the “teaser question” if you will, is “What, in your mind, is sinful?” Ok, ask a conservative redneck from the south what is sinful and you expect… the politically correct response? Ha! Good one. Phil replied with “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men. Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.” Ok liberals you’re right he did say that he believed that homosexuality was a sin. He also said IN THE VERY NEXT SENTENCE that bestiality was wrong. Why isn’t the ACLU swooping in on this nugget? A man who is featured on the most popular reality television show EVER speaks out against sex with animals and no one causes an uproar?! Simply outrageous… Ok. Maybe having sex with animals is a stretch, they can’t verbally give consent so we won’t fuss over someone who doesn’t endorse that. What did Phil say next? “sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men” Hmm… he’s talking about one person sleeping with more than one gender and more than one individual. He’s already talked about his view on homosexuality. In this situation he’s not specifically talking about homosexual relations though, he’s talking about multiple partners. That sounds a lot like promiscuous behavior. Sleeping around just for the sake of sleeping around. Ok so… why aren’t people up in arms about that part? Oh wait… I know why. It’s because homosexuality is THEE HOTTEST TOPIC IN THE WORLD TODAY!!!! After ya know, overpopulation, famine, the economy, the middle east… etc etc etc… but no! We need to talk about a 2nd rate cable channel that airs a tv show about people with beards who make duck calls. My bad, news channels you were right. Lets talk about Phil for a few months. On to the next topic!

The fallout from the whole “Phil Robertson hates gays” thing is just the jumping off point. A magazine (of which I don’t know the name of because I work at Kmart and don’t care about pop culture) had a short piece, one page, on the Duck Dynasty controversy.  They threw a little square on the front page to say “Look at us! We’re talking about Duck Dynasty!!” and admittedly, it did catch my attention enough to read the article. Basically, everyone in the Robertson family is behind Phil 100% The article even states that Willy, the man most likely to disagree with Phil (because he’s more business/public image/politically correct minded) didn’t turn on his father. So basically any opinion that a member of the Robertson family expresses is not going to be denounced by the family members. Which leads me to one conclusion. The second highest (behind God) power in the most popular reality TV show to ever exist is family. Not money, not fame, not screen time, not advertisements. Family. I was once asked to do something for one of my siblings, I don’t remember the specifics and they were probably boring anyways, but I had asked someone else why I’d go out of my way to do that and the response was “because they’re your family” and I immediately felt like the worlds biggest *expletive* because I didn’t realize sooner that your family is one of the biggest, most important, most influential entities that you will ever encounter in your life. And that you should be willing to do anything for them. So… the next time your home from break or have some free time and your mom or dad asks you to sweep the floor or clean your room (I’m looking at you Nate, Nik, Emma, Magnus, Conor, Claire, Colleen, Austin, Ethan, Ivy, Luke and Gene) just do it. It’ll take you 5 minutes and save both you, your parents, and your uncle a headache. 😀 Oh and by the way… I love all of you to death.

Alright I think that’s been enough for people to handle. Two paragraphs about conservative America and ol’ fashioned values?! Lets not get carried away here. I need to keep my liberal readers (of which i have none) interested. Keep checking on my page if you find what I have to say worth reading. One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to post content more regularly and I plan on keeping this one. I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!