Tainted Pet Food Outrage

I am back. I am outraged. I wasn't before but I am now. Have you been following the tainted pet food thing? I only did so in a precursory manner. I do not own a pet, at least one that was not disposable. I always went with animals that I knew I would not grow emotionally attached to. Talk about your self-fulfilling prophecy, they would die and I would feel nothing. Hell, I felt nothing when they were alive, it seems.

I did write a great story dealing with just that about 25 years ago. I was in high school and my English teacher wanted us to write a two pager on ourselves, so he could get to know us. I just do not reveal myself that easily. I am cheap but I am not easy, unless you ply me with brain lubricant (booze) so that other lubricants follow.

Anyway, I went on to write about my history with disposable pets. I told the story of my goldfish, Sam, whom I would try to pull out of his bowl. He was one slimey fucker. Do you know how hard it is to get a slippery, wriggly goldfish off the counter and back into his bowl of water? Man, if he would just have relaxed, it would have been much easier. I guess the fish panic of gills being useless outside the water may have had something to do with that. In any event, he did not die that way. It may have shortened his life, but it did not kill him directly. So, I accept no responsibility there.

I went on to tell how I would take Sam on nice walks in the park and converse with him. I would just tie a rope to the fish bowl and drag it up and down the street. I embellished. I never thought to take the fish outside. I guess I just did not care enough for Sam to get some "fresh" air.

I told about the birds we had (at least three budgies). I never had the patience to try to teach them to speak. I did enjoy letting them fly loose in the bathroom. That did get boring rather fast, though. I was never too upset when we found them on the bottom of the cage, not moving, and very much dead. It meant that there would be no chirping. Oh well.

Then we moved up the evolutionary chain from fish to birds (we skipped amphibians and reptiles) to mammals. This time it as hamsters. I did tell the story of our second hamster, the lovable Harry II (note that all the pets had the same fucking name. It is not as if there was a unique name given to each. See what I mean about no emotional attachment to these pets?). He was okay as far as rodents go, which really is not all that far. The story really began when we took in my cousin's ill-tempered hamster, known as biting Harry.

I told how biting Harry escaped, filed through the cage, with Harry as a hostage. Yada yada yada, Harry escapes. We have hours of fun before he dies. Biting Harry is found dead in the furnace. It was basically a story about how I bring death to pets or how I do not get emotionally attached to lower forms of life (that could be anything including some humans that I have met along my journey) or any such thing. I did get the response that I wanted. "I am not sure that I have gotten to know you any better, but you created a nice, light tone." Ka-ching for me!

Pretty sad that you had to get through all that bullshit to get to the outrage. If you do not know the cause of the pet food taint was an ingredient imported from China. It was supposed to be wheat gluten, a protein. The damn Chinese factory used melamine and other nitrogenous substances, to make it appear more protein-rich than it was. Now, they have found that tainted food was used in the food pellets used in fish farms.

It is not bad enough that they, with full complicity of the Communist government there, exposed our pets to kidney failure and death, but now they are risking our food supplies. Too bad for them, in the end, they will have nothing. As much as they produce a lot of food in China, the rate of ecological degradation that they are causing for themselves and the rest of the planet, will bite them on the ass directly. It will come about when they have blocked out the sun in their neck of the woods burning dirty coal and bled their waterways dry. How is food going to grow there, then? Anybody think of that one? The Chinese were supposed to have the "longview" in these terms, but I do not see evidence of it here.

They should just go back to making flip-flops and crappy plastic, read poison, toys. I guess leave the feed processing to those who actually give a shit. Of course, I am not quite sure where those who give a shit actually reside. In any event, heads should roll, and it being China, organs harvested for resale (waste not, want not).

I am done. Ciao! I am outraged!