Cathood Ethicity

A friend of mine who's a part time officer in some hick town tells me how he sometimes gets calls in the middle of the night to euthanize a cow or horse on the side of the road. One time the shot to the head just pissed off the cow. Second shot it didn't protest much though.

I wouldn't have cared or stopped either. It's too bad you don't have the option to follow up on events that involve both you and the law. My cousin took a purse from a guy who stole it from a car, and he never got a thank you or a fuck off. The cop came, took the purse, and later gave it to the lady, so my cousin never even got a thank you, we just waited around for the cop like assholes wasting our day, holding a purse. It didn't occur to me until later: how did the thief break the car window? I would have used a hammer or a wrench, some small tool that can fit in my pocket. Is that what he used? If the chemistry was right, might he have pulled it out and smacked my cousin with it?

I think your friend Emily didn't really do any harm, but the only real good she did was only of the cat's benefit. At the cost of her time and yours, and a cop's wage, and the wage of a vet who has to put the cat down, she saved the cat from being shoveled up after however many hours of excruciating pain. And like you said, the possibility of a child or something getting clawed. You also prevented the cat from dieing and bleeding all over the place and rotting until it got shoveled up by whoever, which is good if it had some sort of disease because it probably would have ended up in a secluded area and rotted for some time.

But I think that, mathematically, the energy put into that cat -the wages of the cop and vet, your time, even the wasted momentum of the car that you had to disturb from its forward motion- probably could have been used to save several cats. Not that it ever would have been. The cop probably would have just went down a main street to check out the skirts or went and bothered some teenagers if your area is as tame as mine, and you crazy kids were probably just out terrorizing the world with your new age music and hippy haircuts. Kidding. If this area isn't like mine, maybe somebody's purse got stolen on the officer's route while a cop was taxiing a dieing cat to a waiting needle.

So what we have here is a situation that has spawned something in favor of something that was dying anyway. A cat that got hit by a car was probably going to eventually get hit by a car anyway, it was just a matter of what car. What designed this situation was Emily, her decision to help a dieing cat. Well, life is oozing on this planet, pouring out of countless orifices, and a living dog is better than a dead lion. What good to waste life helping something that's dieing? No good at all but to that which is dieing, which will soon be dead and not only will it forget that you helped it, but it will forget that it was ever in pain or even alive.

If putting the cat out of its misery was 'good', then the act is unbalanced by the amount of bad it did. If a dieing cat is worth the energy of a living human, then surely a dozen or however many mice as the amount a cat would typically torture and kill in its life is worth the time of a human? If it's good for a living thing to help a smaller, lesser, dieing thing, then it could maybe be good for a human to have, instead of helping a cat, kill a cat, and save a dozen mice.

Now suppose somebody like my cousin who retrieved the purse were driving. Whenever he sees something in the middle of the road that isn't a dog or a person, he guns it and heads straight for the thing. He's killed a snake, a turtle, countless coons and squirrels, and several cats. I came into this thread believing his behavior was stupid but inconsequential, so I'll never stop at a conclusion on this matter. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever concluded anything in my entire life!

my dad once ran over a turtle.

he said it sounded like a gunshot when the its shell popped.

I hit a swan on the way to my second week (I think) of work at my first job.  I got lost, was running a little late, and was stressed and pissed at myself, so when I first ran over the swan the first words out of my mouth were "Fuck Yeah!"

those words still terrify me.  I just finished writing a movie to get over the experience.  it wasn't as cathartic as I imagined it would be, but it helped.

Its nice that you stopped. Regardless of why you did it it was nice that you did. Its always a good thing to help someone or something out if you can. What you did do outweighs what you could have done.

I hit a raccoon once. I was on the highway going about 60 when the thing JUMPED in front of my car. It hit the windshield on its stomach with all its legs spread and then flew over the roof.

I didnt stop.

I wouldn't be surpised if that cat never made it to a vet and instead was tossed in a dumpster.

My uncle hit a cow while driving in Mexico. The cow didn't clear the expressway fast enough or something and he hit it. Fucked up the front of his van. There was cow shit all over the place.

The only animal I recall runny over was a bunny. What made it worse is I ran it over on Easter morning. His basket full of chocolate and colored eggs exploded all over the street.

A deer ran into my cousin's SUV...and not 'ran in front of', it literally plowed into his passenger side as he drove down the highway in the middle of the night. Scared the shiite out of him of course and though he took the care home I think the cops said it was not legal to drive.

As for being tossed in a dumpster, I'd doubt it since the cop was much nicer with the cat than I would have been. He tried forever to just grab it with his hand when we saw that wasn't going to work, before he did the lasso thing. I'm gonna try and find out tomorrow what happ'd.