The Death of Sensible Shoes

I was amazed many years ago to learn there were actual marijuana seeds in Hartz Mountain Bird seed. I was of an age where this factoid more than passed the 'oh really?' test. Stop looking at my album collection and wondering why anyone would need either The Electric Prunes' "Mass in F Minor" or the debut of Lothar and the Hand People. File my interest and those records under 'indiscretions of youth' and leave it alone, okay?

Anyway. Because of how the various seeds that made up the bird food were collected, marijuana seeds were part of the mix, literally and figuratively. You didn't have to be enrolled in the local chapter of Junior Achievement to imagine what some of the more enterprising of us figured out out you might do. However, it turns out Uncle Sam was one step ahead of us on that. There were people in the bird seed factory whose job was to sterilize the marijuana seeds. I spent a lot of time trying to imagine what kind of a person would have a job like that and how you go about recruiting for it.

I mention this because over the weekend I read a story on birth control for elephants in South Africa where a not insignificant number of males have had vasectomies. There are actually people who not only specialise in performing these, but others who 'quality-control' the process, a year and more afterwards. I'll spare you the details in case after you've bought a box of bird seed, you develop a keen interest in learning more about the process for yourself. However, my aforementioned curiosity about the Hartz Mountain employee MORE than applies to these careers as well, especially the latter position.
I have read Horton Hears a Who at least a thousand times so I'm hoping, if they're recruiting for team members, education may be substituted for actual experience. I always marvelled at the plumage of the Norwegian Blue and invariably have had a bad case of the munchies afterwards.
-bill kenny