A friend sent me two news stories yesterday, to see what I would make of them.
First, a church pastor in Tennessee is defying the state’s ban on possessing wildlife–in this case, dozens of poisonous snakes kept in the church’s snake room. (Did your church have a snake room? Mine didn’t. If I had known, when I was 10 years old, what I was missing–!) The pastor says that if exceptions can be made for zoos, schools, research facilities or whatever, then his church ought to be allowed to keep rattlers, copperheads, and cottonmouths, too. ( http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/us/tennessee-pastor-disputes-wildlife-possession-charge-by-state.html?_r=0 )
Second: more and more travelers are complaining about airlines allowing passengers to bring their pets aboard–not in cages or carriers, but sitting on the seats or even wandering around loose in the aisle. ( http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/business/emotional-support-with-fur-draws-complaints-on-planes.html?hpw&rref=health&_r=0 ) Thanks to the American Disabilities Act, you can bring pretty much any kind of animal you please onto the plane with you, as long as you’ve got a letter from a “mental health professional” certifying that this dog, cat, or hamster is a “emotional support animal” and not just a pet going on a trip with you. A lot of the other passengers have a hard time understanding that distinction. I am reminded of Mavis Pugh in the classic Fawlty Towers episode, “The Kipper and the Corpse,” bringing her obnoxious little dog into the hotel dining room.
When I read these two stories, a connection leaped immediately to mind.
Why doesn’t the pastor have his poisonous snakes declared emotional support animals? It’d be the easiest thing in the world to find some daft mental health professional who’d gladly write a letter to that effect. Hey, where does it say you can only have your emotional support animals on an airplane?
Problem solved!
Brilliant Lee! NOW find a permanent “cure” for Leftest-Socialist Liars..”but I repeat myself”!
Maybe we could get them to “handle” black mambas.
Lee, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iJ4ySMuizU
That’s what I think of whenever anyone mentions snake handling 😀
The snakes in that video are baby pythons. As in, “We may be crazy, but we’re not stupid.”
Really? That’s funny! I always thought they were poisonous snakes 😀
It’s like when those same kind of people drink ‘poison’, it’s never the really strong stuff that would kill them for sure.
Sorry Lee, but this time you’ve gone too far. I don’t go anywhere without Alex, my 22’ long emotional support crocodile. As for the charges that people keep disappearing, Alex needs to eat like, just like the rest of us. I snack on bagels and cream cheese, Alex prefers grandmothers. He can’t help it, he was born that way.
I can’t tell you how much comfort Alex brings when I’m flying. I never feel crowded by other passengers when Alex is around. He also helps when I’m in negotiations. The day they came out to shut off my electricity I just tied Alex to the meter pedastal and the electric company immediately changed their mind about cutting off my service. (They’re greedy people, anyhow. Imagine thinking they have the right to charge for the one vital thing that powers my Emotional Support Video Games.)
Well, I hope I straightened you out, because Alex and I are goin’ to church now. It’s time to clean out the snake room and Alex likes to visit his reptile cousins.
🙂 🙂 🙂
All it takes is a letter from a mental health professional. It doesn’t matter if the guy is hanging upside-down from the clothesline because he self-identifies as a bat.
So you’ve met my doctor? 🙂
I just couldn’t help myself. This put me in mind of an old Ray Stevens tune:
I’m not sure that was the one I was thinking of, so – just in case:
It’s called “Smokey Mountain Rattlesnake Retreat”
What I saw was the Mississippi Squirrel Revival, which was plenty ‘nuff funny.
Yep. I remember that one too. Ray Stevens did lots of hilarious songs 🙂
He’s made quite a career for himself. He’s a great musician in his own right, but that in itself isn’t enough. The humor pushes it over the top.
Try this one.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9iJ4ySMuizU
That’s the one! Thanks, Unknowable 🙂
“Let all things be done decently and in order.” –Paul
Fat chance of that!
Next, they will let people smoke medical marijuana on airplanes because they have a doctor’s note.
Wouldn’t that be a mess?
Yeah, he would be a Tennessean. Some people misread the Scritures jeopardizing not only themselves but others as well. I pray that God would steer that man towards a true understanding of Hos Word.
I’ve come to an interesting conclusion regarding this, somewhere along the way. There are all sorts of denominations out there and they can’t all be true, but there are fine, devout people in many of them. My thought is that when Christ returns persons with honest hearts and truthful motivations will hear the call and respond accordingly. Denominations are the works of humans, and honest hearted individuals will recognize the voice of the Christ when the time comes.
From this perspective the important thing is to recognize the voice of Christ and act upon that recognition.