Musings About Depressing Commercials

[media-credit name=”Peter Griffin” align=”alignleft” width=”300″][/media-credit]

I’m a dog person. I love dogs, sometimes more than people. Things are easy and simple when you’re dealing with a dog. They let you know when they’re not happy, but other than that, they’re pretty much giant walking furbags filled to the brimming with nothing but love. Which is why it drives me crazy to think that there are actually people out there that can bring themselves to hurt a dog. It really pushes my buttons, and for some reason, there are always commercials on during the handful of shows I watch for organizations like the ASPCA, showing us some poor mistreated dog that has been beaten, starved, and neglected.

I hate that, because I immediately feel guilty about the fact that I can’t really afford to donate money to them right now.

Then the commercial keeps going and I get angry.

In Missouri animal abuse is only a Class A misdemeanor, and leaves a surprisingly large amount of wiggle room in the law for what is not defined as abuse or cruelty. Maybe its the misanthrope in me, but  I think its a joke to leave such obviously psychopathic behavior unchecked. It’s pretty commonly accepted by criminologists and profilers that the first step to becoming a serial killer is  torturing puppies, kittens and the random squirrel that they can get their hands on. I think we should treat the people that beat and torture animals the same way we would people that beat and torture other people. Of course, in my opinion, we’re not exactly as gung ho there as we should be. I mean really, how hard is it not to mindlessly slaughter the innocent.

I spend everyday not mindlessly slaughtering the innocent, and I’m fairly certain I’m on some sort of government watch-list for people most likely to become super villains.

I guess the real point here, though, isn’t that we should punish the people abusing animals just because it’s the right thing to do. I think we should over punish these people because until we do, there won’t stop being commercials about abused animals that are depressingly soundtracked by Sarah McLachlan songs. Then, I probably won’t get horribly depressed and angry at eleven o’clock at night when I’m trying to enjoy some classic reruns of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Who am I kidding, I’d always find something else to send me horrifyingly spinning down the shame spiral into a full blown depression, it might as well be sad puppies instead of something stupid, like my horrifying toenails.