Hurting Animals

I would not necessarily call myself an animal lover. Sure, I like them and all. Dogs especially (not scary dogs though, like fuckin' Cujo.) and while I am a vegetarian, it is predominately for health/dietary preferences and not really because I'm against the idea of eating animals (I mean, I guess I am against the idea of eating animals, but it's just not top of the list for why I don't eat'm, y'know?) I've had pets in the past and I liked them very much, especially Molson, a beagle who lived for 14ish years, and Bear, a shitzu that now resides on a farm somewhere and has changed it's name to Princess (uhg.)

Anyway, I was hanging out at a friend's place the other day, and he recently started dating this girl who worked in a pet store. He had two cats the last time i saw him, but now he has those same two cats, like a million snakes and two of THESE:



Sugar Gliders! Anyway, the dude's girlfriend was all like, 'man, pick them up and play with them' and i was all like 'no way' and then the sugar gliders were all like '-a terrifying sound impossible to type-' and i was like 'jesus christ!'

I also wasn't too keen to hold on to the snakes, even though loved to pick up snakes at the cottage when I was a kid and throw them at my sister. Inevitably, I was accused of being afraid of animals. But that's not the case, dudes!

The truth is that I am afraid of my own amazing strength. While I am not an animal lover, I take no pleasure in the pain or death of living things. Seeing a helpless animal shivering in pain has been scientifically proven to to be the most heart breaking thing in the world, next to a child blowing out the candles on a birthday cake alone in a room because no one showed up to his party. I would not be able to take it if I accidentally broke the snake or pulled a Lenny from Of Mice and Men on the sugar glider. Who knows what Hulk-like creature lurks under this Bruce Banner physique?



I guess that's why I like dogs. It is pretty hard to accidentally hurt a dog. You'd pretty much have to do it on purpose, in which case you are a monster. Unless you are my brother, who recently stepped on his puppy and broke it's leg.



Don't worry, everyone, he feels terrible.

Running Out Of Toilet Paper When You Still Need Some Toilet Paper

WHAT WOULD YOU DO!?!?

Falling Down In Public

Yesterday I went out for a walk, stopping by several book stores along College St looking for a specific book and generally having a nice little Sunday. When I decided it was time to head home, I grabbed the High Park street car, which lets you off at some random point in the south-easterly section of High Park. I live at the central-north section of the park, so I figured a nice way to cap off my Sunday would be a pleasant walk through the park.

I decide to veer off the road and take a path through the trees and bushes, as it didn't look to be too messy. It was pretty. What I did not realize though, was that i was headed in the direction of the off-leash area of the High Park Dog Park. For obvious reasons, the dog park is fenced in.



So I'm walking through the tress and the bushes and I come to this fence. On the other side are a hand full of people walking their dogs. To my left is a gate, so i walk to it and push on it only to find that it is bolted shut, something they would do to discourage use of the icy trails in the winter. So I grab the gate with my hand and throw my leg up. Once I was sure I had good footing, I swung my body to get myself over the fence. Only the gate swung open, ruining whatever precarious balance I had. My legs go completely out from under my and I have become that idiot that couldn't operate a gate and instead fell flat on his face.

I pick myself up off the ground and let out a quick chuckle at the shocked "oh my!" that came from one of the dog owners who saw this whole thing. I brushed myself off and zoomed outta there as fast as I could. HOW EMBARRASSING!



And this is my point. Falling down is always embarrassing. It is always the result of being too stupid to pull off an everyday maneuver like 'walking' or 'sitting on a chair'. In this case, i was the weirdo who emerged from the woods and was too stupid to operate a gate. In other cases, I'm the idiot who couldn't turn around during a basketball game. Or the moron who couldn't balance himself while walking down a hill.

It is made worse by the fact that usually when you fall, the people around you do not fall. You really can't help but draw attention to yourself when your feet go out from under your arms flail in every direction and you let out a loud "whooaaaAHHH!" And I know for sure that everyone around is thinking "Oh man, what a bafoon! That idiot can't even walk! Hilarious!" How do I know they're thinking this? Because this is exactly what I am thinking when ever I see someone fall. Seeing someone fall is consistently funny, and I think most people agree.



When you fall, it is like becoming a baby for the briefest of moments. Even small children can walk and stand and sit and keep themselves generally balanced. You're an adult, man, how dumb to you have to be to fall down?

Mold

Mold freaks me the fuck out.

Mold is not unlike a tiny world that grows anywhere it damn well pleases. Mold has no regard for what it may grow on or whom it may poison. It is just this living parasite that envelops prey, feeding off of it until there is nothing left to eat, growing until it can grow no more, unstoppable and inherently dangerous.

Imagine if you will, a tree. Now this tree has roots that dig into the earth so that it can collect water and nutrients from the soil. The tree takes up a certain amount of space, some trees growing very big, but the tree has a limit to how far it will go. It will not take up all the soil.

Now picture a tree that has roots that go fucking everywhere! Now imagine other trees popping up from those roots and like some bushes and shrubs and shit, just popping up everywhere. Boom, tree pops up in the middle of your kitchen! Whooosh, shrub in the bedroom! Soon it is a world of greenery and the humans can do nothing to appease the horrible tree monster as it wants nothing other than to take over everything.

That's what mold does, but on a smaller scale.

Did you know that people can get mold on there bodies? I was once a told a completely unverifiable story about a guy who never toweled off after a shower. He just got out of the shower and whipped his clothes on and then, I guess, sat there is kind of wet clothes for a bit? I don't know. Anyway, he got yeast infection on his chest from it! GROSS! (On a some what related note, do not google image search 'yeast infection on chest' unless you never want to have a boner again.)

Now, I know what you're saying, most mold is harmless, just throw out your fruit when it gets moldy, why are you keeping fruit around long enough for it to get moldy etc. But it's not just food mold! Moisture mold is the real scary mold because you don't even know that it is there! Any of you fuckers that live in a building that is over ten years old, chances are somewhere in that building there is a downright insane amount of mold inside some walls. Seriously, knock down a wall, you'll find mold.

I worked in Disaster Restoration for a period of time, which was not as glamorous as it sounds. It involved cleaning up floods/fires/wind damaged things etc. Most often, it was a simple flood, like the basement just flooded or something. Sometimes they flooded with poop and poo-water. In many cases, the insurance companies covering the jobs took their sweet sweet time to give the go ahead to let us finish the job once the disaster itself was taken care off. So sometimes these soggy basements, soaked in poo-water, would just sit there for a month or so. Let me tell you: I've seen things that change a man. Poo-mold related things. And if there is one thing that my boss drilled into my head it was that that stuff will kill you.

It's caused by a leaky pipe or heating or poor weather proofing or any number of normal everyday shit like taking a shower. All that steam and moisture you make when you are taking a shower, it's seeping into the walls and getting all moldy and someday you're going to be carrying a big box and you'll trip and fall and put a big hole in the wall and all the little dormant mold spores are going to burst out like a Glade air freshener and you are going to breath them in and die and then you'll be like 'so that's why Jake was afraid of mold.'