Heather Christena Schmidt

Tough shit.

Last week I posted this photo that I found on EpicFail.com of a cat that’s owner had covered it in make up. A few people noted feeling a little disturbed by it. Someone else told me that she hoped a herd of cats mauled me while I bitch.

Note that I said “…of a cat that‘s owner…” as opposed to “…of a cat whose owner…” You know why? Because cats are not people. They are animals. Filthy, disgusting, rancid, disease-filled animals.

That’s just my opinion.

Now as for putting makeup on the cat, it didn’t look like it was all that disturbed to be dolled up like that. In fact, it sort of appeared to enjoy the attention. It wasn’t – like – chained down or anything. It was of a healthy weight and its hair had a nice glow (indicating it is well taken care of). If it had appeared to be abused, that would be a different story. While I do like to distinguish the difference between animals and people, I also can respect an animal as a living, breathing thing. But really … the cat looked a-OK with the makeup. So I saw no problem with it.

I’ve pasted it in above, do you? I mean really. Let’s keep things in perspective here.

And yet it turned into a direct attack on me, and lost me a whopping 20 blog Facebook followers, because I included the note that I actually hate cats.

As for owning cats, while I wish all of them were nuked off the face of the earth; and I do see a moral dilemma with domesticating any animal meant to be in the wild – in the end I say: to each his own. I respect other people’s rights to their feline friends if they so desire. But that isn’t going to make me love cats. As horrifying as the thought of me hating a kitty-witty is, I actually do and feel I have good reason. My mom was bit in the neck and sent to the hospital once by her cat of five years; and I am so seriously allergic that on more than one occasion my throat has started to close from a cat rubbing against me.

But what do I get for it? What? Courtesy? Understanding? Fuck no. I can respect all of you for loving your cats; but then I  in return have a herd of psychotic, mauling cats wished upon me for having a different opinion than all (some) of yours. Gee, this seems fair, doesn’t it?

I think this is a bigger problem.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I think that there is very little respect anymore in our culture. Maybe around the world it’s different, but in American culture – and especially in the community in which I live – it seems to be waning.

A great example: RSVPs. This last year I have thrown so many fucking parties that I didn’t want to throw: birthdays, dinners, funerals… you name it, I threw it. The only thing I asked everyone for was an RSVP. Let me fucking know if you are going to come. You know that I am going to cook up a gala of a meal. You know how hard I fucking work to make my house look nice when people come over. You fucking know that it is a thorn up my asshole every time someone doesn’t even acknowledge that I invited them. You know goddamned fucking well that after throwing all these parties for everyone and everything else, I didn’t even get a fucking piece of cake on my birthday.

And yet there is so little respect for other people and their time and effort and planning to pick up the goddamned phone and say “sorry, I just can’t make it” around where I live. Or maybe it’s just no respect for me. In truth, I’m starting to think that’s the case.

Fuck that.

I’m throwing one more party this year and then I’m done – forever: a baby shower. It’s in the Midwest, though, and etiquette is a little different out there. People that plan on not coming actually let you know. Some of them even call and apologize, rather than just sending an email or RSVPing “no” on an event site. I hardly know what to do with myself after years of assholes being so rude.

There is very little respect for other people, other people’s feelings, and others’ opinions anymore.

Opinions Are Like Assholes:

Everyone’s Got One And Some Of Them Stink.

I don’t know why everyone always gets so up in arms when I say the following:

Opinions are like assholes: everyone’s got one and some of them stink.

What is so offensive about that? It’s a case-in-point fact.

One of my favorite undergraduate professors once told me that: sure, everyone has an opinion, but that doesn’t mean all of them are right. This is a big issue in philosophy, and it’s called relativism. Anybody who’s anybody in academia knows that relativism is a big, fat, crock of shit. Allowing relativism is how you get people like Hitler mass-murdering Jews; and psychopaths like that Batman Returns killer, just last year in Colorado. It was just their opinion that those people deserved to die! Baseball players believe it’s OK to use performance enhancing drugs because they believe the rules are stupid. They all had a right to their opinion, right?

Sure, everyone has a right to their opinions, but it doesn’t mean that their opinions are (a) actually the correct or accurate or morally OK option, or (b) that they have an inherent right to act on them.

And on the note of opinions, I think people take opinions too personally. I have never seen people so offended than when I say that I hate California. I do! So sue me! A lot of people do. Just because I’m honest and don’t bottle up my feelings doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. Instead, though, a lot of the people I know who take personal offense to my feelings about the Golden State spend all their fucking time trying to invalidate my feelings and tell me why I’m wrong for having them. Which brings me to one last issue…

Cultural Narcissism

I think one of the biggest problems with our contemporary, American culture is that we have somehow come to the belief that everyone is experiencing things exactly as we are. So often I experience with people in my own life and my own community others forgetting that everyone in this world is living a different life, with a different situation, a different financial standing, a different upbringing, in a different time period, with different parents, under different circumstances, and along the lines of different health issues beyond their control.

Clutter in the house makes me feel physically sick. It stresses me out. It creates more dust, which I am terribly allergic to as well. My husband doesn’t get that and just keeps adding more and more clutter, because he fails to recognize that I am different than him. Along the same vein, I am deathly allergic to cats. And no matter how many times I say that, people very close to me absolutely refuse to understand why I would not like them. They have a hard time believing that I could dislike something that they love – they love it so everyone must love it, right?

Wrong. We all are entitled to our own opinions, just like we all have our own lives to live. Oh, I’m sorry. Did my opinion offend you? Well isn’t that too bad. Unless you are living in my shoes, in my life, with my problems, with my money, with my family, during my time, and encountering everything that I encounter, you kindly can keep your own comments to yourself.

I say put makeup on all fucking cats. And if that makes me deserve a group of psychotic, mauling cats, so be it. At least I went down being honest, rather than acting like a little bitch who’s too afraid to speak the truth for fear of the wrath of others. But then again, the wrath of others really is the problem, isn’t it?