{"id":116,"date":"2013-09-05T06:44:17","date_gmt":"2013-09-05T13:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jocularious.com\/?p=116"},"modified":"2018-07-23T19:29:45","modified_gmt":"2018-07-24T02:29:45","slug":"attack-flying-chihuahua","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/?p=116","title":{"rendered":"Attack of the Flying Chihuahua"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Incoming<\/a><\/p>\n

I recently had the opportunity to speak to one of my U.S. senators.\u00a0 This big shot friend of mine gave the senator a \u201cdonation.\u201d\u00a0 Enough to fill a wheelbarrow, if the wheelbarrow was as big as your house.\u00a0 My friend is an oil guy.\u00a0 He wears a cowboy hat too big for his head (but he\u2019s too rich to mention this to).\u00a0 And he\u2019s the kind of guy who likes to give people a wide toothy grin and a big thumbs up anytime the situation remotely allows it.\u00a0 My friend made his money the old fashioned way.\u00a0 He flunked out of a second tier college, and then stumbled around drunk for a few years until his grandfather died and left him a boatload.\u00a0 Anyway, he gave a bunch of money to this senator, and the next thing you know, this senator\u2019s aide is calling my friend to set up a meeting.\u00a0 Only one thing, my friend is a busy guy, and this is what led him to make the critical mistake of asking me to go instead.\u00a0 He figured I was good with words and could convey his position on an \u201cimportant energy issue.\u201d Like I said, big mistake.\u00a0 Almost as big as his hat.\u00a0 You see he wanted me to talk about \u201cfracking.\u201d\u00a0 Now I know all you old timers at the VFW think I\u2019m talking about something else.\u00a0 No, not that.\u00a0 The fracking I\u2019m talking about is where trained engineers<\/i> shoot high pressure water or radioactive waste or something down into the earth, and then pray to God the whole place doesn\u2019t blow to smithereens.\u00a0 Then oil shoots out of the ground and makes them absurdly rich (the One Percenters the Occupy folks are always taking time out of their busy days to complain about).\u00a0 You may have seen this if you ever watched the beginning of a Beverly Hillbillies episode.\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty sure it was Jed who started the whole fracking thing.<\/p>\n

Suffice it to say, the environmentalists are all beside themselves about this and are having about one billion heart attacks a day.\u00a0 In the meantime, the politicians are hiding in corners counting votes (and my friend\u2019s money).<\/p>\n

So, anyway, I roll into this coffee meeting at some random Starbucks.\u00a0 And I failed to mention that my oil friend gives the senator absolutely no notice he\u2019s sending me instead.\u00a0 The disappointment in the senator\u2019s eyes is almost too painful for me to bear.\u00a0 So the senator recovers and jump starts the conversation by leaning forward with a deeply sincere expression (a little too close for my comfort) and asks me to pass along his gratitude to my associate.\u00a0 I swear he actually used the word \u201cassociate.\u201d\u00a0 I told him that my friend was extremely disappointment to miss the meeting, but an emergency had come up (which was a bold-faced lie, but it felt right at the moment).\u00a0 The senator asked me about any concerns that he should be aware of (he probably meant of my friend, but in fairness to me, he wasn\u2019t explicit).\u00a0 I dove in.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, there is,\u201d I said.\u00a0 He leaned in and widened his eyes.\u00a0 (It felt quite conspiratorial.)\u00a0 \u201cYou fly quite a bit, don\u2019t you senator?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost every week.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo airline safety is important to you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you been noticing what\u2019s going on with the therapy animals lately?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTherapy animals \u2013 dogs – they\u2019re everywhere now.\u00a0 Got\u2019em for everything, even anxiety.\u00a0 Well, they\u2019re flying on planes with us now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd\u2026?\u201d the senator\u2019s face squinched up puzzled.<\/p>\n

\u201cEver wonder what kind of damage a wiener dog could do incoming in at a couple hundred miles an hour?\u00a0 Yeah, I know people are already holding babies on their laps, but that horse left the barn a long time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPet seatbelts.\u00a0 Strap\u2019em down.\u00a0 Heck, strap the babies down too. \u00a0Harness them to their owners or parents, whatever.\u00a0 Legislation would shoot through Congress.\u00a0 Promote it as an infant\/companion animal safety measure.\u00a0 Do it before some nervous nelly\u2019s Chihuahua slams into your head on an aborted take-off.\u201d\u00a0 I paused for effect.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s time, senator.\u00a0 It\u2019s time.\u201d<\/p>\n

When my friend asked me later how it went, I nodded and said, \u201cMission accomplished.\u201d\u00a0 He gave me a wide toothy grin and a really big thumbs up.<\/p>\n

_______<\/p>\n

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______________________________<\/strong><\/p>\n

Also-<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Check out these great books:<\/p>\n

The Lawyer\u2019s Song: Navigating the legal wilderness<\/em><\/strong> at \u2013<\/p>\n

https:\/\/buff.ly\/2K41Tax<\/p>\n

Seven Rules for the College Playground –<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

https:\/\/buff.ly\/2IqXxgn<\/p>\n

Seven Secrets You Need to Know to Hire the Right Lawyer –<\/strong><\/p>\n

https:\/\/buff.ly\/2roFIov<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently had the opportunity to speak to one of my U.S. senators.\u00a0 This big shot friend of mine gave the senator a \u201cdonation.\u201d\u00a0 Enough to fill a wheelbarrow, if the wheelbarrow was as big as your house.\u00a0 My friend is an oil guy.\u00a0 He wears a cowboy hat too big for his head (but […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[20,21,16,49,532,15,17],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor","tag-air-travel","tag-airlines","tag-dogs","tag-fracking","tag-humor","tag-service-animals","tag-therapy-animals"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1404,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions\/1404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}