Emo pets managed to upstage my long list of 2014’s “best” excuses…
Okay, had I been aboard the plane onto which a woman carried her 60-pound emotional support shit ‘n piss machine, the conversation would’ve likely gone something like this:
Me: Seriously? In coach?? This is a first class move. Since when do poors get to pull off such entitlement?
Pig Lady: Oh, but this is my friend. He’s an emotional support pet. I have a prescription and a letter from my doctor.
Me: I see. Must be a prescription for combatting powerlessness with selfishness. What’s the letter say, dare I ask?
Pig Lady: How dare you! This is a psychiatric service animal! He’s critical to my mental health and/or treatment.
Me: “And/or treatment”…You’re hilarious! I’ve got ten bucks that says before this oversold, flying gas can touches down, you’ll get spit on by one of these nice passengers.
Pig Lady: You’re disgusting.
Me: Conniving baloney. Treatment of what, by the way, therapeutic reduction in personal resilience?
Pig Lady: You judgmental, narrow-minded ass!
Me: DUDE! You brought a squealing, urinating pig onto a flight where passengers are already treated like farm animals. Plus, that guy there is Muslim, so you’re definitely freaking him out. What if I kept kosher, or the lady in front of us was allergic? Try to think outside of your own headspace for a minute.
Pig Lady: Excuse me! I have documentation from a mental health professional stating that I require my pet to accompany me –
Me: Sell it someplace else, Charlie. Sounds to me like you live behind a fantasy excuse for staying curled up in a little ball in the face of life’s challenges. I’m telling you, if this plane nosedives, I’m using you as a battering ram to get to the emergency exit.
Pig Lady: Oh my God! You’re threatening me!? I’m telling the flight attendant. Excuse me, miss? This man just said –
Me: I think you have pig poop on your shoes.
Pig Lady: I do NOT! And who the hell are you to tell me my mental wellness is an excuse for –
Me: In New Guinea they’d eat you and your incontinent buddy there.
Pig Lady: I can’t believe this! Air Marshal! Air Marshal!
Me: (singsong): La-La-La-La, I’m not listening. One, two, Buckle my shoe; Three, four, Knock at the door…La-La-La…
The fact is, there were so many Golden Excuses to work with this year that, without this particular gem, it would’ve been hard to pick. We’ve got everything from self-aggrandizing ice bucket bullshit to CNN’s wallowing coverage of troubled Malaysian aviation; vets who’ve died of delays in basic medical screenings; and anything and everything Justin Bieber. Of course there’s also Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson’s not being cross examined on the stand; botched death row executions; U.S. Secret Service incompetence; Michael Jackson’s moonwalking hologram ghost; that racist land baron turd Donald Sterling; arrogant, ebola quarantine-bucking super asses Nancy Snyderman and Kaci Hickox; the Israel-Hamas horror show known as “Operation Protective Edge”; kidnapping, murder, and beyond-the-pale corruption in Guerrero, Mexico; and whatever God himself was thinking when he threw a Walmart truck at Tracy Morgan.
But from all of that (and mountains more), the award for 2014’s Where Excuses Go to Die “Golden Excuse” simply must go to the “emo pet” and the diminished expectations for national coping skills that it represents.
Welcome to nuclear winter for the American backbone.
It doesn’t stop with pigs, either (did you know a mini horse can be an emo pet?). So if you’re afraid you’ll feel lost without your own purse-bound inbred puffball, this new, cold landscape of “access rights” means all you need to do is head over to a website called the National Service Animal Registry (a.k.a. Chickenshit Headquarters among many), take an online quiz, and purchase, for $64.95, “certification paraphernalia” for Mr. Wigglepants that will let you wave your excuse for maladaptive behavior at all those haters.
And what maladaptive behavior am I referring to? Well in this not-so-brave new world, it could be a number of things, but a strong sense of entitlement is certainly a factor. Public temper tantrums are a classic sign of “I want what I want, and I want it now;” put another way, “If I can get away it, I should.” And nothing allows people to trumpet the fact that they’re “owed” such exceptionalism better than officialdom.
But come on, aren’t I overreacting? Can I really believe emo pets represent the final FAIL nail in America’s pine box?
Thanks to something I call “countervalue culture,” yes, yes, and yes.
‘Cause you see, the ONLY logical place to go from a woman forcing her emo-sow onto a domestic flight is toward the even more mind bending self centeredness of one Connie Ley, an Indiana lame-brain who signed a Last Will and Testament that contained euthanization instructions for Bela, her German Shepherd. Oh yeah, Conns was so certain Bela wouldn’t want to live without her that she planned to have the dog cremated and stuck into her own casket (heck, why not have someone dress up like Jim Jones to give Bela her Kool Aid, you A-hole?). And while the final court ruling determined that individuals don’t expressly have the right to destroy their property via death documentation, Bela’s fate was looking precarious for a while: a serious attempt was made to extend Connie’s selfish demand for emotional support into the afterlife — because she wanted what she wanted when she wanted it, without regard for the very life of her “beloved” pet.
And that just had to be called out as the Golden Excuse of the year.
Certainly 2015 will be an even bigger year for excuses, so stay tuned.
For more mockery of companion animal phonies (oh, white people problems) check out The New Yorker’s “Pets Allowed,” by Patricia Marx.
.