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My brain has hardly had the chance to recover this morning from the logical grand mal of Dubya’s statement that he is turning away from free market principles in order to save the free market when I choked on this piece about San Francisco residents forgoing groceries and gifts to friends in favor of Christmas gifts for Lucky: “Even in Recession, Furry Friends Come First“. It turns out pets can sense if their owners’ gift-giving is first rate or not, and they’re also much more appreciative of presents than those ingrate simians we call family.

For instance:

- “Along the park terrace, a mother-daughter border terrier duo was playing tug-of-war with a toy in the shape of a doughnut. To prevent this type of arguing on Christmas morning, each gets her own stocking, filled equally. ‘We couldn’t have any fighting about it,’ said owner Tina Evans…”

- ” ‘We’ll cut back on our own food first,’ said Ming Chapin, owner of Kelsi…who was dashing around the Lafayette Park tree while trying out a new pink rain slicker. ‘It’s her color,’ Chapin said.”

- “Pinched by recession, Christmas shoppers will skimp on people, sure. But never a dog. ‘Oh, no. Not for our babies. Are you kidding?’ said San Francisco resident Donald Steelman, whose bichon-Yorkie, Milo, has his own closet with 21 coats in it.”

That thumping sound you hear is my brain trying desperately to escape my skull before it melts.

In a subsequent paragraph about a study which concludes animals feel slighted by inferior gifts, I am willing myself to believe the article’s journalist, Sam Whiting, surely suppressed a delicious guffaw when penning this line: “No owner wants to be faced with that on Christmas morning.” Sometimes, faith-based reading is the only way to cope.

Now, San Francisco is a wonderful city populated with many conscious, green, educated folks. I’m like a chip in dip here, even when conscious crosses the line into self-righteous. (If I don’t get at least one note a month from a neighbor thoughtfully instructing me on how to improve my recycling methods or park my car, I actually feel unloved.)

So help me with my cognitive dissonance, please: 21 coats? Flattering color palettes? Equitably filled Christmas stockings to prevent fights? For a pet?

I cherish my cat, I do, but with all due respect her brain is the size of a lima bean. She doesn’t know the difference between a bottle cap and a ball, and she certainly isn’t going to punish me for buying the wrong color. I don’t care if those coats are made from recycled nun habits sewn by the happiest fair trade artisans in the world. No pup, no matter how emotionally available, needs a wardrobe full of 21 coats when in this very same city there are plenty of homeless humans who’d make grateful use of just one.

Now, I agree that life would be no fun if we only ever bought what we strictly need. We all know what happened to Sparta. But the rationalizing of these pet owners is the sort of stuff you can’t make up. Our loved ones, you see, upon receiving our holiday gifts, just don’t deliver the emotional payoff we feel we deserve for our commercial holiday investment. The obvious solution is turning – literally – to the hair of the dog. Because pet gift excess is not only gratifying, it’s affordable! Heaven help the homeless when not even kin can compete with Fluffy.

Hey, I get it. Sometimes we need to buy stuff that makes us feel good, and to hell with the starving orphans in Kenya or wherever it is this month because you can’t be Mother Theresa all the time. Even Mother Theresa wasn’t Mother Theresa all the time. Western guilt is so passe, right?

Carbon offset if you like, recycle if you must, but keep your paws off my parkas.

Image: Spoil Ur Pets

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Tags: green , lifestyle

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