So, I was shopping at the mall today, spending the gift cards I got for my recent birthday, and there are always lots of salespeople in their little booths there, especially around this time of year. But today one of the guys comes up to me and says hello and holds out his hand. I thought he wanted me to shake it, so I did and he immediately starts filing on my nail with this block. He did it so fast that by the time I thought to say a simple ‘no thank you’ he was done. I looked at my nail and, I’ll be honest here, it did look gorgeous; very shiny, smooth, a lacquered look. So I was kind of interested. I asked, “What is that you just did?”

This guy had an accent so it was hard to understand him, plus he spoke really fast, like a salesperson does. But I heard the word “silk” very distinctly. So I told him “I don’t use silk. But thank you anyway.” You’d think the pitch would have ended there, right? WRONG! He demanded to know why I don’t use silk while glaring at me as if I had just told him the earth is flat. I told him that silk comes from worms, and I’m against using animals for reasons like that. His glare on me intensified to a look that could scare off the paparazzi and said, “It’s silk from the Dead Sea! Who cares about the Dead Sea?!?!?!?!”

Not only had this douchebag attacked my fingernail uninvited and rubbed the end product of animal torture onto it, but now he was yelling at me for having morals. Who cares about the Dead Sea, he asks? Well, I don’t care about it any more than I care about other bodies of water, but that isn’t really the point, is it? I think he was trying to say that the worms are suffering a very far distance away, therefore they’re not important. Okay, so by that logic we shouldn’t care about the war in Iraq, right? After all, it’s happening all the way over there. What a crock. Suffering is suffering, no matter who is going through it, or where it’s happening. And I’m against all forms of it.

By the way, I heavily doubt the worms were actually from the Dead Sea. Although if they were, it would be pretty fitting, wouldn’t it, considering the name of the sea?

One quick thing you’ll definitely learn about me is that I don’t like the term “pet” when referring to one’s doggie or kittie or whatever else they have.  I see a pet as a half-naked man, bound and gagged in shiny black pleather.  That’s a real pet.  An animal like a dog or a cat is not my servant or my inferior.  They’re my companions.  I have two of them: Maggie and Cleopatra.  But this post isn’t going to be about me bragging about my cats.  Because that’s boring, hearing someone drone on about their kids, saying that they’re a good mom.

No, this post is about animal breeding.  If you’re an ARA, you already know that breeding is one of the most cruel things someone can do to animals.  I don’t know the actual numbers precisely, but looking at different sources, at least 4 to 6 million cats and dogs are put to sleep every year just because there aren’t enough homes.  I’m not including the ones that get put to sleep because they’re too sick or injured to keep going in life.  I do my best to encourage everyone I know that has animal companions to get them fixed.  Thankfully, most of the time they’re smart and have done it already.  But there are two lame excuses I occasionally get that make me want to swallow a bottle of cruelty-free glass cleaner!

Lame-ass excuse #1: “I’m not hurting any animals, because when my cat has kittens, I make sure all of them go to good homes.”  This is usually said with a very pompous tone, as if the person thinks she deserves a MEDAL for bringing babies into the world that she can just hand out like they’re candy.  And it’s usually said by a total moron, because they obviously can’t do simple mathematics.  Sending baby animals to homes, even if they’re really good homes, steals those homes away from animals in shelters.  The families that adopt those cats, well, they’re obviously in the market to get a cat, aren’t they?  So instead of going to a shelter and giving a home to an already born cat who really needs it, they’re going to adopt from the math-impaired dipshit who was too lazy to take proper care of the mother cat in the first place.

Lame-ass excuse #2: “I don’t need to get her fixed because she’s an indoor cat.  She doesn’t go outside.”  This one is the WORST!  I really would love to be in a room for five minutes with any asshole who is that lazy and that uncaring just so I can shove hot sauce up his ass and give him the biggest boner of his life.  Only I’d tie his hands so that he couldn’t jack off and be done with it.  Because that’s what he’s doing to this cat by not spaying her.  Imagine being horny as FUCK (pun intended) 24 hours a day!  I mean, yeah, some of us are, but we can easily fix that, can’t we?  Those of us lucky enough to have lovers can get our freak on, and those of us that don’t can rub one out and be done with it.  Animals are different, though.  They feel this undying urge to copulate and it’s NOT a picnic for them!!!  They’re miserable in that state!  The jerk who gives this awful excuse is not taking the cat’s happiness into consideration at all!!!  I really fucking hate people who get a PET (because that’s all they are to these people: pets) and just treat them like objects.

There is no such thing as responsible breeding.  Period!  Always Spay, always neuter.