You might be a freak IF...

You buy your pet a "Pet Card" for the holidays!

Yep, you heard me right, A GREETING CARD for pets! I couldn't believe it either until I heard the PetSmart commercial while driving around yesterday and finding myself suddenly dumbfounded as the announcer proclaimed the wide selection of holiday gifts for pets (at PetSmart), including holiday greeting cards for all pets!
CARD... FOR PETS!! Oh... my....Buddha! Whaaaat?! When the hell did Americans go totally insane!?!

My friends, people who purchase schmaltz for pets is not some tiny segment of the consumer market. I recently read that over 3 BILLION dollars are spend on pet gifts, including cards! That's a lot of jack slapped on the counter for chewie bones, rawhide treats, alien costumes for Chihuahas, and now GREETING CARDS for all varitieties of pets. Wow..
I understand that someone would want to buy their dog a chewie bone, or new chase toy for Christmas. When I was a kid we would always get our pet Collie a new chewie bone and she loved it. But greeting cards? People, if you haven't realized it yet animals DO NOT read greeting cards, or anything that I am aware of! Does purchasing greeting cards for pets seem completely insane to anyone else? It surely does not seem insane to the millions and millions of people who buy this funky stuff every year.

I always like to try to understand things that seem completely confounding to me, so I will try to peer into the mind of the pet owner who would purchase their cat or gerbil a holiday card. Ok, this is what I come up with, the only shred of reason that I can distill from what seems like shere madness to me. The reason we would buy our collie a chewie bone at Christmas is because she liked eating them and it made us FEEL GOOD that we were doing something nice for our pet on a holiday. Perhaps people buy things for their pets (that are functionally useless to the pet!) because it makes the owner feel good- the owner believes they have enhanced the human/animal companion bond through a perceived act of inclusion. Maybe this is totally crazy, but it's the only thing I can conjure to rationalize the purchase of pet greeting cards! What do you think?

Do you buy your pets greeting cards? Do you make your pet a greeting card? If I had a dog and felt inclined to build it a greeting card, it would probably read something like this-- "Dear Rover, Happy Holidays! I know you can't read this card and can't understand any of this crap i'm reading to you. Honestly, this is more for my well-being than any benefit to you, so just sit there and listen! I'm sorry I had to take you to that traumatizing vet visit last month to have your anal glands popped. I know that must have hurt your ass AND your psyche! Anyway, Merry Christmas.. Well, Maybe Happy Hannukah, perhaps you're Jewish? I never asked. At any rate, i'm sorry about that ass-gland thing little buddy, I hope you forgive me! --Love Ben"

Ah, who knows! Americans, we're crazy, as exhibited by the photo at the TOP of this blog!!