From Chinese Food to Pets
A Geezer’s Notebook, By Jim Foster
Here’s something for you to think about. In Newmarket on Mulock Drive near Yonge Street is Cynthia’s Chinese Restaurant, good revues by the way. The sign outside says, ‘All you can eat’ and beside it ‘Take out’ and ‘We deliver’. How would you order an ‘all you can eat’ dinner for delivery?
“Cynthia, send us a truckload; anything we can’t finish you can pick up later.”
The other day, I was clicking through the channels looking for anything that didn’t have Donald Trump’s beak in it, when I came across a TV ad for an American pet food store. Now I know my tolerance level for commercials is somewhere slightly less than zero. But this time they went way beyond their usual inane appeal to the lower forms of life, and ventured dangerously close to promoting cruelty to animals on a grand scale. The man who runs the place, was encouraging pet owners to bring little Fluffy or Rover along on to the store to, now get this… ’enjoy the shopping experience.’
I don’t suppose anyone gave much thought to the dog’s feelings before they came up with this considerably less than brilliant idea.
Poor Rover is lying in front of the fireplace, lost in some erotic dream about Lassie and a street full of overturned garbage pails, when the lady who owns him (I was going to say ‘Mistress’ but if he wants one of those he can go on line or dial one of the ‘for a good time call’ numbers in the back of a newspaper if you can find one) says,
“Wake up, dear, we’re going to have another shopping experience.”
Can you imagine how the dog must feel? He’s just at the part where Lassie takes him behind the doghouse, and now he’s got to go shopping.
He looks over at his master who is sprawled on the couch watching a football game, and mumbles “Why do I have to go? Take him. I don’t want to go to some dumb pet store. For one thing it’s dangerous. Last week, some old dolly wheeling around a cartful of kitty litter ran over my tail, and when I snapped at her, I got six months in obedience school and she got off with a warning.”
It’s a tough life being a dog, especially if he belongs to someone who dresses him up in a little sweater and tam. It’s not quite as bad for lady dogs. (I know lady dogs have another name but I can’t use it. Some grandmother might read this column.) Lady dogs don’t mind jumping on the fashion bandwagon.
But poor Rover, he’s got to trot down the street in a powder blue sweater-set to match the outfit his old lady is wearing. Plus it’s topped off with a rhinestone collar. The poor guy has to pass by Bruno, the bulldog next door. Bruno is wearing a big leather belt around his neck with enough spikes sticking out to scare the hell out of any pit-bull within twenty miles.
Another thing, every day the family takes turns watching Rover perform his doo-doo functions, and congratulating him on his fine performance.
Bruno goes alone wherever and whenever he damn well pleases. Not only that, his owner doesn’t follow Bruno around with a little scoop shovel and a package of baggies. When you clean up after Bruno, you need a front-end loader and a dump truck.
I said a few months ago people who talk to their dog on a regular basis, worry me. Not because they talk to them, that’s fairly normal, but some people actually carry on conversations with them and eventually end up taking advice from an animal whose sole ambition in life is to be able to pee on a tree without getting his paws wet.
Didn’t Mackenzie King do that? (Not pee on a tree, talk to his dog, Pat.) Can you imagine, we elected a man as our Prime Minister who got most of his information from his dog in the spirit world? I heard once he spoke to him long after Pat had passed on to that great kennell in the sky. We went into the Second World War on the advice of a man who got his information from a creature who thought Hitler was the Dachshund across the street.
Can you imagine what a mess we would be in if Doug Ford got all his information from a dog? On the other hand, maybe he does, he certainly hasn’t been listening to real people.
(Excuse me, Willison just told me ‘kennell’ only has one ‘l’ in it.)