austindogandcat.com
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Sunday, April 20, 2014
When You Have to Deal with Rude People, Ask: "What Would Kitty Do?"
JaneA Kelley | Apr 17th 2014 | 
3 Contributions
3 Contributions
I learned long ago that there’s no point in arguing with people who are determined to be unreasonable. It’s a skill that comes in handy when dealing with wacky-and-not-in-a-good-way family members and also with irate customers whose sweet nothings gently tickle my eardrums during my day job as a customer care representative.
Unfortunately, it takes a lot of emotional energy to smile and nod and keep myself from screaming “WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, YOU FOAMING-AT-THE-MOUTH SCREAMING-AT-THE-SKY DRUNK-ASS WHACKJOB?” or saying, “Well, if you’d just quit bitching for a second and listen to me, maybe I could help you!”
It’s not healthy to keep all that crap inside, though. Loud music works wonders for me, but sometimes I just can’t blast punk rock until the paint blisters off the walls. On those occasions, I ask myself, “If I were a cat, how would I react to this situation?” Or, to put it more succinctly, “What Would Kitty Do?”
Here are a few sample scenarios where I’ve asked myself, “WWKD?”
Situation No. 1: Crappy downstairs neighbor
A new tenant recently moved into the apartment just below mine. This guy has an unfortunate habit of blasting bad music -- not just bad music, mind you, but the most utterly sucktastic tunes ever, played on the crappiest sound system ever -- just about the time I’m ready to relax and unwind after a long day.
My response: I’ve heard him have screaming fights with people, so I don’t want to put myself in his sights by making a polite request to keep the volume down. I have been known to put on my hard-soled boots and walk heavily across my (hardwood) floors. It seems to have the effect of reminding him for at least a few minutes that someone lives upstairs.
What Would Kitty Do? That would depend on whether the cats could get out of the apartment. If they could, I imagine some strategic urine spraying would be in order. Of course, this would strictly be a territorial response, because said neighbor also smells really bad. If they, like my cats, couldn’t get out of the apartment, I imagine they’d wait until I left for work and begin knocking down heavy and/or breakable objects until the neighbor’s hangover begs for mercy.
Situation No. 2: Rude driver
I’m at a busy intersection with a signal that has a green arrow for left turning traffic. I’m in the left-turn lane, and I’m the second car in line. As soon as the first person clears the intersection, a guy in a very expensive SUV, who has the red light and knows that other traffic is moving through the intersection, decides he’s so very important that he needs to make his turn against the light, nearly creaming me in the process.
My response: Beep my horn and give a “WTF” gesture. (Keep in mind that I never beep my horn unless the circumstances really demand it, and a near-miss accident where the other driver would clearly be at fault qualifies as one of those circumstances.)
What Would Kitty Do? Wail on the horn and chase the offending vehicle into a corner, then commence a growling, hissing, screaming stare-down, which could end very badly for the offending driver. In case you’re wondering, this is why cats don’t drive: They’re easily stimulated to the point of road rage.
Situation No. 3: Unhelpful customer-care rep
I’m on a chat with a customer-care representative from a financial institution, trying to get some clarification about an issue related to an account. I’ve rephrased my question half a dozen ways and still haven’t gotten an answer. Finally after getting the same non-answer each time, I finally say something like, “So, what I understand is [account fact].” The CSR chats back: “I understand why that’s important to you.”
My response: Laugh until I cry. Type “Thank you for your assistance” despite the fact that the CSR’s responses have been anything but helpful. But I’ve been so stressed out about this issue that the total non sequitur of the scripted response gave me some desperately needed comic relief.
What Would Kitty Do? Walk across the keyboard multiple times leaving equally nonsensical chat messages:
CSR: Hi, my name is Name, how can I help you?
Cat: Fdasp viry7ewt568 # r%^ftivRFTFFTFU
CSR: Let me see if I can help you with that. To confirm your identity, can I have the last four digits of your social security number?
Cat: $#($(QWV ##220958q[98
CSR: I’m not sure I understand you.
Cat: %$QU(~_!qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq
CSR: I understand why that’s important to you.
Cat: Fdasp viry7ewt568 # r%^ftivRFTFFTFU
CSR: Let me see if I can help you with that. To confirm your identity, can I have the last four digits of your social security number?
Cat: $#($(QWV ##220958q[98
CSR: I’m not sure I understand you.
Cat: %$QU(~_!qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq
CSR: I understand why that’s important to you.
Wash, rinse, repeat, until CSR finally realizes he’s met someone who speaks less English than he does.
APD shoots dog that owner says was 'docile'
kvue.com
Posted on April 18, 2014 at 10:32 PM
Updated yesterday at 3:46 PM
AUSTIN -- The Austin Police Department (APD) is investigating after two officers shot and killed a pit bull in East Austin.
According to the APD watch commander, police were responding to an auto theft call on the 4000 block of Prock Lane, just off of Springdale Road around 8:30 p.m. According to police, the officers shot and killed the dog after it charged at the officers.
Police say the officers were in the street and that they had yet to walk onto the property.
The owner of the dog tells KVUE the dog was docile, and it was just barking at the officers.
"[The dog] was just barking at them. [That's] what dogs do [bark at them]. That's all he was doing just barking, [the dog] wasn't trying to attack his leg or anything," said dog owner Margie Rodriguez.
The shooting is under investigation.
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Miley Cyrus Gives Away Her Replacement Puppy, Moonie, After Having Him 10 Days
from: dogster.com
Michael Leaverton | Apr 15th 2014 |
We've written a lot about Miley Cyrus in the past few weeks. We've written:
- About how her dog Floyd, an Alaskan Klee Kai, died.
- About how she sang to a 60-foot replica of Floyd during a concert at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn -- and about how her mom immediately bought her a replacement puppy after Floyd died.
- About how a writer for the Telegraph was very angry at how Miley mourns her dog -- and angry about how everybody mourns their dogs, really. And also angry at everybody for vague, unspecified reasons, probably.
Now we get to write another story about Miley -- Miley keeps making dog news, you see. Moonie, that adorable little dog that Miley's mom bought her right after Floyd died using some weird Mom-logic we don't understand at all, because Miley already had plenty of dogs and didn't seem ready for a tiny, helpless one just yet (what with all her Twitter mourning and singing to giant replicas of Floyd while onstage at the Barclays Center), is hitting the bricks. Moonie is out. Moonie is leaving the island.
Poor Moonie. The only good part about this is that it's surely the best thing that could have happened to Moonie.
She broke the news on Twitter, because that is how Miley communicates. She tweeted, “Moonie, thank you for giving me so much love, comfort, & peace. It's just to soon for me right now #missingmoonie.”
Naturally, one of her best friends, a fan, asked her what had happened to the little dog. Miley said the dog had gone to live with a friend's mother, who already had a puppy. We think that's what she said:
“my friends mom who has a tiny pup 4 him 2 play with Molly After wht happened Im scared 2 have a tiny dog #moonieandmolly.”
Here's the punctuation for that sentence: ',.',. (And here's the missing "o" from the first tweet: o.)
We're not sure what the "scared" part refers to, but probably to the events of 2012, when Miley's Yorkie mix, Lila, was killed by her dog Ziggy, which we wrote about here.
In any case, Moonie's disappearance does not come as a shock. Miley has been very public about her struggles with caring for a new dog so soon after Floyd died. Here are some of her tweets from last week:
I was/still kinda am torn about Moonie bc I would do anything 2 hold Floyd. But I can't Moonie is giving me so much & 1 day @ a time
Just don't know if it's to soon I still have so much love to give my Floydy
But I just gotta take it one day at a time and take in all the love little Moonie is giving me
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