No More Tears

I wanted to do a long road ride yesterday but I got out of work late, and, like the song of the Siren, the gentle sweet sultry voice of the Murray Lake Trail convinced me to take my SS out again. Damn it, the trail was still muddy and icy, but an excellent ride none the less. Bill was busy so I went out solo again. When I ride by myself, I tend to grab hold of a thought and go over it again and again, like a skipping record.

Yesterday I latched on to a bumper sticker I saw on a truck that passed me while I was riding to the trail. It read: “caution, show dogs”. At first I thought it meant the owner had a high strung over-bred dog that might snip at you so be careful; then I realized she meant for others to drive extra careful because she has a dog created from carefully selected sperm and eggs and, in her mind, is more important than my daughter since I don’t have a bumper sticker telling that lady to drive with caution around me. Oh boy, the thinking continues…

Let me fist state that I love puppies and ponies as much as anyone, so PETA, please don’t firebomb my house.

How has the pengilum swung so far that someone can sincerely think other people should drive extra safe around them because they have a dog in the vehicle?

I thought about the anthrax scare a few years ago where the dogs that sniffed envelopes in mail rooms were carefully monitored in case they came in contact with anthrax, with a response team ready to jump in if they were exposed, but the human workers in the mail room were left on their own.

And my thoughts would go back to that lady sailing along calm in her belief that her dog is somehow more important than my daughter.

I was still obsessing over this when I got home and took a shower. I noticed that our Paul Mitchell Tearless Baby Shampoo stated: “not tested on animals”. How then do they know it doesn’t burn eyes? Was it tested on humans? Was it based on what a geek in a lab coat (much like me) theorized based on the chemicals? Is it because they didn’t think any overprotective father was neurotic enough to test their claim? I poured a big glob of Paul Mitchell Baby Shampoo in my hand and crammed it in my eye and it hurt like a M-F. I hopped around the shower cursing Paul Mitchell, PETA, and that lady with the bumper sticker.

The love you have for your child cannot be compared to the feelings you have for a dog, no matter how the parents were selected.