cuckoo for cat chow

Sorry about the delay in writing, folks -- I really was writing something recently, and it was all snarky and all about the whole Big Election Brouhaha as, per federal law, all first-person humorous-type essays must be these days until we finally get ourselves a President-Elect. Unfortunately, the more I wrote, the snarkier I got, and the snarkier I got, the angrier I got, and I decided I did not want to sully my fine homepage with aspersions on Katherine Harris' genetic lineage (I was guessing everything from German Shepherds to Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs to rare strains of bacteria) or her sexual proclivities (once again, guessing everything from German Shepherds to Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs to rare strains of bacteria.) And while they can't sue you for libel if it's true, I decided I just couldn't in good conscience keep the writing up. So *zap* off it went.

And then I realized I had nothing new and I didn't want to keep the old around as "current" and I really was just very very tired and wanted to sleep. So, er, I slept for a week and a half. But boy! Am I rested now! I thank melatonin.

One of the unfortunate side effects of an election year (and there are so many to choose from) is the inevitable General Mills cereal tie-in. I'm sure we all remember voting in the 1980s for the Trix Rabbit to finally get a bowl of Trix. I mean, consider the 1980 election. Reagan, Carter, Anderson, or Give The Rabbit Some Trix. When presented that way, I believe it's more than easy to see which way the Will of The People will go. There aren't enough hard-hearted bastard spawn in this world to deny the Rabbit his tri-colored fruity wheat puffs. Well, not then, at least.

And remember when the Rabbit finally won and got his bowl of Trix, and wanted more? Ha! Ha! Should've read the fine print, stupid bunny! He got a bowl of Trix. No more, no less. Future legal eagles of America sat up in their beanbags and took note and we ushered in a new era of Faustian excellence. Thank you, General Mills.

This year, however, the cereal/democratic process cross-promotion realizes there might be a surplus of hard-hearted bastard spawn, so it appeals to a more baser instinct. No, not that one. Checked the back of a Cocoa Puffs box lately? We get to VOTE! And on what? Let's see what the box says:

"It's election time and the candidates have each taken a stand on the future of money. Vote now for your favorite candidate."

Clearly we're not going to get a legitimate response on what position the candidates are going to fill, and considering we've got a cartoon donkey and a cartoon elephant and Sonny the Cuckoo Bird in the running, it's not going to be anything important like President and CEO of General Mills or anything. (If that were the case I'd have to vote for Count Chocula 'cause I'm telling you, the man gets the job done.) Maybe we're dealing with Mayor of Cookieville or something. I dunno. What I do know is that the FUTURE OF MONEY IS IN (Y)OUR HANDS, as evidenced by the ballot. Now you take a look here at the candidates' platforms (shamelessly copied, verbatim, from the back of the box) and figure out exactly whose side the biased cereal company is on:

1. Donkey, who promises to put his face on every coin
2. Elephant, who promises to make his coins BIGGER
3. Sonny, who promises to make his coins in real milk chocolate for you to eat.

Well! No need to add "and a pony of your very own which you can ride all day", is there? I think it's pretty clear which candidate kids are gonna choose, unless they all suddenly read old copies of Ripley's Believe It Or Not! and develop odd fetishes for 16-pound coins from Madagascar. In fact, I'm pretty sure General Mills knows this, too, and has co-opted all the gelt they can find for this purpose. (Sonny's Jewish! Who knew?) It's also pretty clear from the inherently biased art that Sonny will win -- he's on a campaign train, surrounded by happy kids holding signs for him, while the donkey and elephant are off in the distance, running to catch the train because they've obviously missed out. I have come to the conclusion that this is a fake election, a sham set up to appease the populace with promises of chocolate, and merely exploiting the sweet tooth -- of children, no less -- to achieve their goals. I guess it could've been worse -- we could've been voting on whether or not the Cookie Cop finally gets to send the Cookie Crook to the electric chair.

I'm still scratching my head, though, over what obviously must be some kind of odd, elusive partisan metaphor in the Donkey and Elephant platforms. Is General Mills trying to suggest that Democrats are all vain, Caesar-like creatures, while Republicans are mere size queens? And the third party candidates are here to eliminate metal coinage and give you chockies instead? What? What? What?!

I think the saddest thing of all is that I've devoted way too much time to looking into this promotion. Actually, what's even sadder is that I'm past the quarter-century mark and I still eat sugary cocoa cereals. But hey, they're good and the sugar helps you endure Lengthwise, Not Across, "Boston's Newest and Brightest Morning Show!" Or whatever they're calling it. Whoo boy, that's perky. You ain't s'posed to be that perky in the morning, not even with a hum-dinger of a day ahead.

Recently I noted with perverse glee the odd questionnaire I found in the box of kitty litter crystals. Well, I'm glad to report the bag of cat food got jealous and decided to spit out its own little flyer when I opened the bag. Actually, we found it as I was pouring the bag into the cat dish -- hey! kids! FREE PRIZE INSIDE! Neither cat wanted a plastic-wrapped bit of paper, so I took a look.

It's actually an order form for a "Free Purina Cat Chow 2001 Celebrity Cat Calendar." It includes, not surprisingly, 'original photographs of celebrities with cats'! I'm glad, because original photographs of celebrities with ferrets would've really ruined the entire spirit of the project. Various famous people such as Brandi Chastain, Jimmy Smits, Cheech Marin, Matthew Broderick, and Cal Ripken Jr. are featured, and I think that's kinda cool. Matthew Broderick likes cats! Deion Sanders, too! Who knew? The one thing that's not mentioned is whether or not the cats featured are owned by the celebrities. I would've been a bit more interested if that were the case; it's very reassuring to realize that even though Christy Turlington is a famous supermodel and earns more money than I'll ever see, she's as human as the rest of us and has to clean the litterbox. From time to time she'll also wash the whole thing out.

I'd also be curious as to which famous people can't name a cat to make TS Eliot proud, and thus show off Mr. Whiskers and Kitty.

The oddest thing, of course, besides the "helpful cat care information from your Cat Chow Mentors each month" (I have this amusing mental image of a figure in a hooded robe intoning "don't give them too much dairy, young acolyte") is the little questionnaire they make you answer in order to get your free calendar. No "my cats are substitutes for the children I'll never have" pop psychology this time, though. This time, through carefully-worded "Strongly Agree / Agree / Disagree / Strongly Disagree" statements, we get to Test Our Ability To Correctly Parse Commercials.

To wit:

"I purchase brands that bring out the best in my cat."
To me, that just says "I listen to cat food slogans whether I actually realize it or not." Has anybody actually asked their grocer for that? "Excuse me, which brand will properly bring out the best in my cat?" Don't people usually ask which brands are on sale this week or something? Personally, I purchase brands the cats will obligingly eat and not promptly throw back up. (Poor Abbie has a problem with soft food that way, though I think it's that he gets excited at actually having True-Life Meat-Like Product in his bowl, wolfs it down too quickly, and doesn't give himself a chance to chew properly. I've picked him up and lectured 25 times on each side, you damn cat! but honestly, I don't think it's sunk in.)

"When I buy cat/dog food, I prefer to always buy one brand that I know and trust."
Well, OK, I'll give them that one. Brand loyalty is an important trait in a consumer and it's wise to figure out who'll be more likely to switch on you. I do; I buy certain brands, but only because, as mentioned above, the cats'll eat 'em and not yak 'em.

"Pieces of different colors and sizes tell me there are different vitamins and minerals in the food."
Oh, now, this one's a hoot and a holler. I mean, really, this is the only reason I bothered to write about the order form in the first place, it was that ludicrous. I'm still laughing as I look at it. I'm abusing the use of italics because of this. You might as well write "I WILL BUH-LEEV ANYFING U TELLZ ME" on your forehead in red marker if you answer "Strongly Agree" to this one. It's a well-known psychological fact that the shapes in pet food are there to appeal to the humans more than the animals -- I mean, hell, have you ever seen a cat eat a dead animal? Are you going to try to tell me that very that same cat would turn up its nose at kitty kibble because it wasn't in fun mousey and fishy shapes? Sure, to a cat People Food is a big attraction, but what cat is going to associate a milk bottle with dairy products? Does the cat ever use the milk bottle? Does milk even come in bottles anymore? I guess not. And the milk bottle looks way too much like the drumstick for its own good, I say.

On one hand, it explains to me why certain brands of cat food are colored the way they are -- burnt umber, mustard yellow, brick red -- not to provide variety and branding color, but to tell us stoopid hoominz that hey! This one's got Vitamin D in it, and that one's got calcium in it for healthy kitty bones! But on the other hand, I maintain it'd only be all nice and good if the people at Purina ever put a decoder ring in each bag, since I have absolutely no idea which color goes with what mineral. And it'd be truly helpful to be able to tell Martha to be sure to eat all the yellow ones, since she's been looking kinda logey all day and that's Vitamin C, and -- hey! Aren't cats colorblind, anyhoo!?

Even so, with one more Secret of Checkerboard Square out in the open, you still can't convince me they've been having us on all these years, and put the fishy flavor in the chicken-shaped pieces and the milk flavor in the fishy-shaped pieces and the chicken flavor in the squidgy unidentifiable dead thing-shaped pieces. Perhaps it's an inside joke shared by them and all the cats. Maybe that's why the cats just sit and stare at us 18 hours out of the day.

With that in mind I'm proud to serve mine monochromatic, X-shaped cat food. This means Abbie could possibly one day gain intelligence and learn how to spell words like X++XX and ++X. There's hope for you yet, mi amigo.

Take care, and don't eat anything you shouldn't.