Day of the Living Asshats

[jamesq]

nosarious and I went to fetch Spanky this morning. It was trapped by my neighbor across the street (the trap is still visible on his front porch). According to the City's Cat Complaint page, the first option should be to talk to the neighbor. The next is to trap the cat and inform the city of who's cat it is (if you know this information, and my neighbor does, in fact, know this). The cat will then be taken to the pound and the owners will be notified.

We got no notification, the only reason we knew the cat was taken to the pound and not simply dead from being hit by a car or a cougar was because another neighbor saw the Animal Control truck come by. The asshat never told animal control who's cat it was. If we'd been later then 4 days retrieving Spanky, he'd have been adopted out to someone else.

Yeah, it's partially our fault, Spanky managed to lose his collar, so while he's licensed, his tags aren't attached to him at all. Also, we let him outside. I've always considered roaming cats to be a roughly equivalent to smoking outside. There's places where it's technically illegal, but unless you're in someone's face about it, nobody really cares. Still, the guy could have handled this in a ton of ways that didn't have to include scaring the shit out of a poor cat overnight. Poor thing was meowing all the way home, it was so scared.

Did I bitch about him shoveling his snow into the street last winter (incidentally trapping thebrucie's car one day, which took us about a half an hour to dig out? Probably wouldn't have happened if he'd done it properly and shoveled onto his lawn. Did I call him an ignorant fucktard for having a Separatist Party of Alberta bumber sticker on his truck? Nope.

He's been trapping other cats in the neighborhood, as evidenced by the continued presence of the trap on his deck.

Anyway, we dealt with that drama this morning. Spanky is back, nosarious is poorer, and my low opinion of the asshat neighbor is even lower.

I drove around running other errands today. For the most part, every person I dealt with outside of the car was kind, considerate and willing to help me with my tasks. Conversely, every single driver had a retard sandwich for lunch. Seriously, I got cut off so often I was wondering if silver is the new invisible. And I saw lots of other people getting cut off too. Nobody singled, people were doing right lane passes if it looked like their drive was going to be delayed by even a second. It was brutal. And it's weird that I only ever see this shit on the weekends. It's like commuters are docile during the weekdays and then go nuts on the weekends.

The urge to be just as asshole-ish was strong, but I willed myself to be a courteous driver. I'd leave room for merges, let people in when traffic was a stand-still, etc. I got a handful of thank you waves, which made it all worth it. Not everyone was an asshat (or sandwich-of-dubious-fixings eater) it seems.

Comments

[jamesq]

Not sure which "it" you're referring to.

[petranef.livejournal.com]

You refer to your cat as an "it." That is a pronoun which refers to objects, not beings.

[jamesq]

My use of "it" in this case is grammatically correct as it is used for a non-human where the gender is irrelevant.

I understand that you're worried It shows a callous disregard for animals, but I think I've made clear that I care for Spanky a lot in this post.

[petranef.livejournal.com]

I deeply disagree with that usage. Just because it's a common usage, doesn't mean it's right. It reduces the being in
question to an object, a thing.

Well, your post made it clear that you were annoyed with your neighbor (and rightly so).... But I am happy to hear that you care for him.

[petranef.livejournal.com]

Removal of the reproductive organs doesn't change the inherent gender of the being in question.

Do you refer to women who have had a hysterectomy as "it"?