I’m not sure if it’s
the three-day holiday weekends that attract the odd news or vice versa (I’m
thinking not so much versa as opposed to salsa but that’s how I roll) but I
suspect attempting to get from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to Christie Carr of
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and not exceed the legendary six degrees of separation
may be close to impossible. As it is, getting from Christie to Irwin is quite a
leap, figuratively if not physically.
Read this for yourself; I’ll wait here. Our children are fans of something called First World Problems, and its thousands of
variations and permutations and Christie and Irwin are, I imagine, somewhere in
all of that. I appreciate the story’s thoughtful sidebar on “What States Allow Ownership of Exotic Pets?”
This is exactly why God (and His servant, Al Gore) invented the Internet. My
initial reaction is Oh My.
(Tell me Bert Lahr
doesn’t know a set-up when he hears one.)
I know someone from
Oklahoma-we met when he wasn’t there but in Germany. He has since returned
(someone paid the deposit I guess) and lives, I think, in Tulsa. He has a
doctorate and a marvelous life with a wonderful family, but does not own a
kangaroo so I can’t claim to have the all-important ‘eyes on the ground’ to get
me any real-life, real-time background.
I admire the
reporter’s straight face while noting Christie “dresses (Irwin) up each time he
leaves the house. The clothes — a little boy's shirt cut and sewed to
accommodate his neck, sometimes a tie, and jeans or slacks with a hole cut for
the tail — are necessary for therapeutic reasons and to protect him against
germs.” All this time, I thought that
flu shot I got in the Walgreens in October was why I hadn’t had a cold. I wear
a shirt and tie every work day-I think those vaccine guys got some ‘splaining
to do.
Stories like this
are why I’m happy nothing else on the planet knows how to read. If other species
get wind of how goofy we are, some of them might to tell us to take our
opposable thumbs and big brains and go pound sand. And now thanks to that damn list, we know exactly
how near the animals with the tools and teeth to back that up have to travel. Terrific. I’ll go into the basement now and
get the suitcases because we may need them sooner than we think.
And that won’t end
happily either as I suspect Irwin will have gotten so used to riding shotgun on
the drive to McAlester, he’ll be a real delight to
travel with. Whatever you do, Christie, don’t let him order at the drive thru
window at the Jack
in the Box. That line of cars behind you will end up stretching
past Lake Talawande all the way to Bugtussle.
-bill kenny
No comments:
Post a Comment