2002-08-01 - 12:36 p.m.
I just last night finished reading the greatest book ever. It's a rare one, called "Ronald Rabbit Is A Dirty Old Man" by Lawrence Block. Usually he's a mystery writer, but this one is some kind of bizarre erotic comedy farce. It's weird and freaky and fucking hilarious. This guy gets laid off and his wife and best friend run away together that same day and his other ex-wife is harping on him about alimony payments, and he manages to ruin all their lives, plus a few others, get a new girlfriend (or seven) and get a new job, all through writing these outrageous and bizarre letters to various people and circulating copies to every character in the story.
The whole story is told through this man's correspondence. It's hard to explain, but it's damn good. It also contains the greatest single piece of advice I've ever come across as far as cheating and relationships go-
"The day she spits you out, old buddy, is the day you've been replaced."
I don't think I should have enjoyed the book so much. I have a feeling this is one of those things, much like the Hank Williams III song "Cocaine Blues," that creeps the hell out of any person with even a shred of good taste, but that I absolutely love. Oh well. I'm fucked up. Big deal.
I barely slept at all last night because my next door neighbor abuses his dogs. We're talking, like, criminal abuse. He keeps them locked in cages made of chain link fence 24/7, no matter what the weather is like. They have no roof-type thing over their heads, so the sun beats down on them constantly, and when it's cold in the winter, they get no shelter. They never, ever get let out of the cages- in fact, their owner doesn't even open the doors to give them new food or water. Their food, water, bed and toilet are all confined in that same little six square feet, and these are big dogs. Then, when, like any animal would, they bark or whine and scratch at their cage door to express their displeasure at being treated so poorly, their owner, a fat redneck fuckhead idiot my family refers to as Cletus comes out and screams at them and beats them to get them to shut up.
I've tried to stay out of it because A) I'm rarely in town and B) they're not my animals, so technically it's none of my business (If I believed otherwise I'd have let a prarie dog out of it's cage a long time ago. This is different though. I disagree with, you, Brenda, on keeping the prarie dog as a pet, but at least you're good to it and it's obvious you love it, so I can deal. I still love you, Brenda!) But this has gone too far. Last night, Cletus, in his drunken idiot stupor, left his floodlight on, which is annoying enough in and of itself to me, because it shines DIRECTLY into my window, and even with my blinds drawn tight, it still generates enough light to make it difficult for me to sleep.
Difficult becomes impossible to sleep because the poor dogs, who don't even have blinds, obviously can't sleep either and bark because they're not comfortable. So then I get the pleasure of Mr. Fat Idiot Redneck 2002 coming out every half hour or so starting at around 2am to scream at his dogs.
Enough is enough. I have never, nor will ever claim to be big into animal rights, because I eat meat and use animal products. However, it's possible to do those things without having to treat the animal in question cruelly (though many places do treat the animals cruelly, but that's another story) These dogs are just pets, however, and why the fuck would you want a pet that you obviously don't love?
One way or another Cletus, you're not going to have those dogs much longer. If I can do this legally and make you pay for what you're doing, great, but if I have to, I'll settle for hopping your fence one night and setting your dogs loose where they'll run away and never come back to you, and I'm very certain that anything that happens to them after that is still going to be a marked improvement over their current situation.
I'm tired now. Good day, all.
Ken
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