A fan of Dubs Quixote, Shawn, has proposed a rule forbidding the keeping of cats and fish as pets. The rule against keeping fish is, I think, a fantastic idea. Frankly, unless someone honestly believes it improves the feng shui of a place, an aquarium looks to be a money pit, and the fish probably arent aware of who is feeding them. Ill give Mister Rogers an exemption after the fact -- as I recall, there were fish on his show -- but otherwise, yes, theyre out. On the other hand, Ive had to deliberate a little about cats. To be sure, your Philosophical Leader has met his share of annoying cats. Personally, I blame the Egyptians for making them annoying. As religious persons will do, they took a good practical idea -- people who had cats around, had less vermin around -- and turned it into an overblown religious imperative. They worshiped cats, and the cats still expect the same treatment, thousands of years later. Consequently, some cats remind me of extremely attractive women, in that when we feed them, give them shiny things, and otherwise pamper them, they are likely to act as though were doing what we should do anyway. At the same time, cats do have a little practical use, not only in that they still catch vermin, but in that observing them teaches us how to be properly aloof, how to tell other people to shove off, and even how to scare off bigger people who arent as intelligent -- Ive seen cats scare off dogs multiple times, and they supposedly have superb hunting instincts. Also, to be fair, theyre more easily toilet trained and much less likely to annoy the crap out of guests -- whereas the majority of dogs Ive seen will jump up on a person who enters the house, with full approval of the owners, cats generally are as content to leave me alone as I am to leave them alone. This, plus the fact that some cats -- so my cat-expert friend Janalyn tells me -- actually are rather comforting, definitely make cats a bit more reasonable as pets. Also, Janalyn is justified in owning cats because she writes so much hilarious material about hers. Frankly, if she put all her statuses about cats together into a book, shed have enough cash to pay for her infant daughters college education AND own her own cat shelter. Again, though, not all cats are so well-trained and reasonably behaved, so giving them a free pass isnt reasonable. So, the rule on cats is as follows: Persons are permitted to keep cats if said cats have a practical purpose, including as meditative devices, and if said cats are well-trained. As noted, Im going with Shawn about the fish.
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 04:49:03 +0000
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