BannedCast

I like dogs. I have a dog. Dogs are wonderful animals and great companions.

They are not, however, replacements for or equal in importance to people, and they are neither a lifestyle choice nor a political cause.

Now that the freakout over Ebola has receded back into the darkened corners of America’s faulty grasp of science and its belief that The Walking Dead is a prophetic vision of actual events to come, people have turned their attentions back toward other equally unreasonable and unqualified fears in the form of genetically modified foods, better known by their buzzword acronym: GMOs.

And so while observing a woman shopping for “organic” (a fancy name for “prematurely spoiled”) arugula at Trader Joe’s this week, I couldn’t help but observe that her apparent aversion to genetically modified foods was ironic in light of the dog she carried under her arm into the grocery store.

The irony I would have liked to point out arose from the fact that her “service dog,” a cockapoo, is much more a product of genetic engineering than was the traditional bag of carrots she shunned for fear of genetic molestation—and yes, I did just coin that term. Pretty soon there will undoubtedly be support groups for victims of Genetic Molestation©, and they will meet primarily in Santa Monica and Portland.

The point is that the same people who are so adamantly against genetically modified foods are the very same ones who will, without a second thought, take their genetically modified dogs to work and carry them onboard their cross-country domestic flights or, in this case, bring them to the Trader Joe’s on the corner of LaBrea and Third on a Tuesday evening in order to add a layer of dander to the green bell peppers in addition to that falling from the beard of the hungover 25-year-old aspiring actor in charge of stocking them.

I’m not sure if you’re aware, but a Cockapoo and a Maltese are not exactly naturally occurring species. They’re rather a product of Frankensteinian sexual experimentation, and there’s a term in biology for these kinds of species: “evolutionary dead end.” Because neither the sun-blanched African savannah nor the the wilds of the Australian outback afford the sort of organic, limited-ingredient gluten-free kibble necessary to sustain your emotional support dog’s evolutionary heritage.

Now let me share with you another little anecdote related to this topic that should further illustrate just how overwrought our first-world obsession with canines has become. This story concerns a visit I took to the vet with my dog last month.

I have a Maltese mix, by the way, because when you marry a poor choice like I did, she takes the condo and your money in the divorce and leaves you with what should be an exceptional chick magnet except that when women see a single 35-year-old man walking a Maltese, they automatically presume that I’m  gay, but when they look more closely and see how I’m dressed and that I’m wearing Crocs, they realize that I’m actually just an inept loser, so the dog’s merits tend to wane quickly.

Anyway, as I was saying, I recently took my dog to the vet, and while waiting I overheard—and I cannot stress enough that I am absolutely not making this up—a woman tell the receptionist that her dog was a “9/11 survivor.”

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen: a 9/11 survivor dog.

I think it’s safe to say that on that afternoon, America, and in particular Los Angeles, crossed a new threshold in delusional narcissism by claiming, in all seriousness, that a diabetic Yorkshire Terrier is a survivor of the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001.

I did not have occasion to ask this woman which tower her dog was in that morning, but I can only presume that that dog survived by climbing over the bodies of the dead to save itself, which I would have enjoyed pointing out to her. Because Yorkshire Terriers are nothing if not selfish, which makes them the perfect accessory for any self-respecting resident of Los Angeles.

However, this story calls to light an important and often overlooked facet of the 9/11 terrorist attacks: Osama Bin Laden, apart from hating Western civilization, also apparently hates dogs, which in the minds of many Los Angelinos makes him far more evil than if Osama had reserved his malice only for Christians, Jews, and Republicans.

Because let’s be honest: Christians, Jews, and Republicans chose their ideology, whereas dogs are cute and furry and look adorable when dressed up in people clothes. And anyone who would fly planes into buildings to kill them isn’t worth the horse meat (organic or otherwise) that we feed to them.