Raccoons

"Why don't blind people go sky diving? It scares the heck out of the guide dogs."

Raccoons are known around the world for being animals with perfect night vision. At night, their eyes are able to see things as if it were at noon on Tuesday. They can see objects, food and predators easily. It is God's gift to raccoons to see really well at night.

Unfortunately, it is not night time all the time. Just as the moon is a constant companion, so is the sun. The sun always rises in the east (except on one night in May 1994, but that's another story). It stretches across the sky and lights up the world making night vision goggles worthless.

It also makes the perfect night vision of raccoons worthless. They go from 20/20 to being blinder than than people who see us winning in Iraq. And it is for this reason that raccoons wind up on our roads splattered.

Now I'm sure you're thinking the same thing I once did - "If the raccoons know that the sun will blind them, why don't they just make it home before sun up. The Count does, why can't they?" It's not always that simple. Sometimes they lose track of time, or they get distracted following some food or sometimes they do plan ahead and then they become victims of circumstance. It is that last reason I want to talk about tonight.

Raccoons are in desperate need of your help. Many of you have seen or at least know about seeing eye dogs. They are trained by people with vision for people without. Raccoons need the same from us. They need people with vision to train seeing eye mice to guide raccoons home after a night of tipping over garbage cans.

"Mice?" you ask. Yes, mice. Seeing eye dogs and raccoons don't get along all that well. They are constantly trying to eat each other and it doesn't do you any good to get home if you get there in the belly of a yellow Labrador. Mice aren't trying to eat raccoons and therefore there is a more harmonious work environment.

I know the other question you are asking, "Shouldn't the raccoons be training their own mice?" And the answer is, they probably should but ever since the start of the program there has been trouble with that. You see, the raccoons placed an ad on the radio for mice to come help the blind. They started doing these ads in the cities where the raccoons had particular problems in alleys during storms. Responding to the add was these three little mice. Unfortunately, they all were tailless (which made it hard for the raccoons to hold onto them and be led by them), but furthermore they were all blind. Literally it was the blind leading the blind in an alley during a thunderstorm. Well, the raccoons got so frustrated with these three tailless blind mice that they ate them. Recruitment went way down after that and hasn't fully recovered. The raccoons are trying a new ad campaign next summer that involves a sexy blond mouse washing a car while eating a cheeseburger while helping a raccoon not get hit by the car, but until then, the raccoons need your help. They need you to start training seeing eye mice. With your help, the raccoons will be able to make it home alive without falling prey to cars and trucks they just couldn't see coming.

Mental Health and our Squirrel Population

I am hoping to not only give you the fifth installment of the dead animal series tonight, but I want to share with you a huge injustice in our society.

Nina and I were talking on the phone recently about squirrels and why they dart every where and are so skittish. As I have pondered this, I immediately came to the conclusion. It is because our squirrels suffer from schizophrenia. The reason they dart this way and that way and every other way is because they have too many voices in their heads telling them what to do and they aren't sure what to do. Constantly screaming in their heads they hear "Go left. Go straight. Go right. Find the nuts. Survive the ice age. Fly. Touch the power line." Could you imagine what you would do if 7 different voices were yelling at you at one time telling you to do 7 different things. You would dart every where too.

I know what you're thinking, "Sean not all squirrels dart everywhere and surely not all squirrels dart under the tires of my car."

It is for this thinking that I really wanted to talk to you. We have a health care crisis in this country. 90% of this crisis is because of the socio economical situation our country is in. Put Frankly - we have too many poor squirrels.

Let's first discuss the anti-thesis of poor squirrels: wealthy squirrels. Wealthy squirrels sit in the hollows of trees every day eating the nuts of poor squirrels. They exploit the poor squirrels for food, shelter and general labor. They put a lot of stress onto the less fortunate squirrels.

When mental illness creeps into the family of a wealthy squirrel, the problem is taken care of immediately. The troubled fur ball is put on a train and sent straight to a mental health facility where poor squirrels are once again exploited. The poor squirrels are sent out to gather the anti-psychotic medication that human patients tongue and then throw away. The less fortunate squirrels go out to gather these pills, securing them safely to their lips, and diligently bring them back to the squirrels from more wealthier families. This is why, when you see them, squirrels at mental health facilities are really really skittish - they have licks on very anti-psychotic medication even though they don't have mental illness. While we may never know how many licks it takes to get to the core of a Tootsie Roll, we know that low-income squirrels can get really really skittish on just a few licks of anti-psychotic medication. Needless to say, these exploited squirrels don't last long at this job. As long as the wealthy squirrels get their medications, though, most people don't really care.

I think it's now time to discuss the poor and low income squirrels and how this ties into the epidemic of schizophrenia. First off, the reason a squirrel becomes poor are pretty simple and can be divided into two categories: Drought and immigrant. Some squirrels start out as middle class squirrels but after a few years of droughts and low yield nut gathering, a middle class squirrel can quickly become a poor squirrel living tree to tree with no clue of when the next nut might drop on their head. The other reason a squirrel might be poor is because it is an immigrant. As everyone knows, the dream of every squirrel is to make it to the country where trees are plentiful and there are more nuts than what a squirrel would know what to do with. City squirrels are constantly thinking about ways to make it to the country and be in nuts heaven. Because squirrels know that there is a constant risk of schizophrenia in their lives, it is common for a squirrel to try to get out of the city and too the country before they go nuts. Being schizophrenic in the city is an automatic death wish. A million cars, a million people, and 7 voices in your head telling you what to do. It doesn't take long from the onslaught of mental illness before the squirrel is filling in a pothole downtown.

Because they are poor, often low income squirrels have no or little access to mental health treatment. They can't get rides out to the mental health facilities. And they can't get healthy members of their families to go get meds from mental health facilities (usually the healthy family member ends up going nuts from lack of a nutty diet and from holding anti-psychotic meds in it's mouth for as long as it would take to get the med from a mental health facility and get back to the sick psychotic relative).

So instead poor squirrels try to survive as long as they can. They try to use beer and meth to deal with their paranoia. Eventually, though, they lose this battle and you see them dodging and weaving between cars on the road.

SKUNK Inc.

Marketing is a hard process. You have a product and you want the world to know about it. How do you get your message out there to the people that could use your product? Do you use TV, Billboards, Radio, Direct Mail, Loud Speakers on your bus, or do you try some other route like giving away pens and t-shirts? Companies spend millions each year shaping their message and getting all of their public relations in line with their advertising. It's a very competitive field.

Now let's say you have a product that almost every adult in America would need and crave. Yes, I'm talking about perfume and cologne. Everyone wants to smell nice. A good perfume or aftershave can land you a great job or a great spouse or even Natalie Portman. But in able to get any of that you must smell nice.

There are a million scents out there to try to improve your BO. Open any chick magazine and there are the pull away strips that are scented with Calvin Klein and Victoria Secret. Walk through Macy's sometime and there is a person ready to spray you with something. Even go to a NASCAR event and there is the Old Spice stand (with a replica of the Old Spice race car) giving away samples. Freebies are everywhere. And usually there are a lot of freebies in those locations. There isn't just one scent in the Victoria's Secret store. There is the combination of 8 or 10 as different shoppers through out the day have sprayed a little into the air to test the scent. At a NASCAR event there are the scents of 20 - 30 different race cars, scents of beer, garlic fries, and over cooked hot dogs. It's hard to tell what is Old Spice and what is garlic fries.

That is why it is important to find a way to market your perfume and cologne in some other ways. Get away from other scents. Get away from the over spray of 8 sister scents. This is the exact goal of SKUNK Inc.

SKUNK Inc was one of the first mainstream perfume and cologne companies. The founders of SKUNK Inc. are actual skunks. They find their unique scent to be very appealing. They want to market their perfumes to potential buyers, but they weren't sure how to compete in such a competitive market. That is, they didn't until 1908. In 1908 cars started popping up all over the US. This is large part because of a company ran my a guy named Henry.

Cars provided an excellent way to share with the world the skunks' brand of perfume. Skunks were the first to see that by putting the perfumes on the road on hot and cold days, people would have long stretches of road to mull over the scent and really get a good solid chance to let the unique perfumes fully permeated the nostrils of world travelers.

In 1910, the decision was made to use the roads and highways of America to market this scent. Sales reps and PR people were sent out to the roads, first locally in CA and NY, but then eventually through out the whole Nation to market this scent. The marketing campaign was so simple it was brilliant. Sales reps would stand near the edge of the road and spray passing cars with their pre-authorized official SKUNK Inc. Perfume and Colognes. Once sprayed, the occupants of the car would then have the opportunity to nostrilly analyze the perfume as the car continued down the road.

This campaign worked brilliantly for some time, but eventually tragedy occurred. And it depends on which one of the founding brother of SKUNK Inc you believe as to what actually happened. Either they got to over zealous and hired too many sakes reps and the reps started pushing competing sales reps in front of cars OR there are too many cars on the road and the cars are squeezing out space on the freeway for sales reps to work. Either way, each year a few sales reps die as they are attempting to give away a free sample of SKUNK Inc. Perfume.

Mathmatically Challenged Cats

Last year I brought to your attention the horror and destruction that is brought to our country by the actions of Terrorists Jack Rabbits. Later on I showcased the plight of the depressed deer committing suicide at an alarming rate. I feel now it is time to discuss math and this country's low math scores and how it is affecting our local cat population.

As is no secret, our country routinely scores lower than most other countries when it comes to math and science. Furthermore, our country is so lacking in math and science teachers that the federal government will actually pay you to become a high school math or science teacher. (They will pay for some of your schooling and you get extra bonus checks after graduating.)

I think this is a time to mention that I too, suck at math. I am a product of a California education that focussed on beach days, senior graffiti nights and trying desperately not to get your high school sweetheart pregnant or shot and killed. Math was definitely not my focus. I am very happy that on the fifth attempt to pass Statistics, I was able to get a satisfactory D-.

I lulled myself into a sense of security with the all too common phrase, "Not knowing math is only hurting anyone but myself. Where's the harm in that?" I have recently learned that there is incredible harm in that, and that my cavalier attitude toward math has had a devastating effect on my neighborhood cat.

There are some simple quick facts that are unanimously agreed upon when it comes to cats.

• Cats always land on their feet.
• Cats rule the home.
• Cats are jealous of any thing that distracts you from them.
• Curiosity kills cats
  
• Cats have 9 lives.

It is that last fact that has come to mean so much to me in recent days. Unfortunately, our bad math has rubbed off on our cats and they are suffering for it. My desire to go to the beach and not bring home my text books to study has affected the life of my cats. They are dumber because of my salty wave experiences. They don't know how to solve chi formulas or find the square root of and object four times its size and half its weight. Our cats can't even do simple math. And because of that - they are dying.

Because they don't learn simple math skills, they now litter our roads and freeways. So often, they miscount the number of times they have died. Because of their poor math skills, they unfortunately assume they still have one more life left so they feel it is okay to follow their friends the chickens and cross the road.

But bad math leads to smashed up cat. As they feel the final splat they quickly realize how poor their math skills are and how important it is to study our brought home textbooks.

And this means that for the sake of our cats, we must must MUST become better at math.

Depressed Dear

After alerting America to the great threat that consumes our country with Jack Rabbit Terrorists, I feel it's important to mention that the various deer that scatter our nation's country side are not terrorists. Instead, they are depressed suicidal deer bent on ending their existence of constantly being compared to Bambi.

It's a hard life for a deer since the corruption of the Disney Empire and their sadistic cartoonist have produced that magical movie. Did the cartoonist really have to make Bambi so cute? No, but they did just to screw with every normal deer nation wide.

Do you realize how old it gets hearing yourself constantly compared to a fictional character? For the same reason most women oppose porn, deer oppose Bambi and his perfectness. Bambi is not real yet people are constantly looking at deer and saying "Aww! Isn't he cute? He looks just like Bambi." or worse "Aww! Isn't he cute. He's almost as cute as Bambi." No one can be as perfect as an unrealistic creature. It's just impossible.

But the true depression comes during hunting season. when shouts of acclamations chorus through the forest "Yup, I shot him right between the eyes. I shot Bambi's daddy." Ted the deer and Steve the deer are screaming at the top of their lungs, "That's not Bambi's dad. He was my father." Not even in the murdering and slaughtering of their own parents can they find ownership. Their own fathers are seen as "Bambi Dads." Not even in death can they escape Bambi.

It is these reasons that lead deer to commit suicide daily. Living in a world where Bambi has been is just too much for these dear poor deer to handle and they just get to a breaking point that a moving automobile is a better outlet than a life being compared to Bambi.

Terorist Jack Rabbits

In a recent trip across Wyoming, I came upon a region infested with terrorist Jackrabbits. Jackrabbits, as you may know, are furry little creatures with big ears and really big back legs. Unlike their relatives, these are not cute bunnies. These are terrorist Jackrabbits bent on the destruction of America, even if is one car accident at a time.

The Terrorist JackRabbits (or TJRs) were not born terrorists. And might I add, not all jackrabbits are terrorists. In the course of their lives, though, some jackrabbits just go astray. No one is quite sure when it starts, but everyone is clear on the results. TJRs are a force to be reckoned with.

Some of you readers might be questioning at this point, “What is the mission of a TJR?” It’s a simple one: Disrupt American Travel! How are they going about this mission? By repeatedly attempting suicide missions.

In the course of just four miles of road, I counted over 50 dead successful TJRs. These initial slaughters seem to be trial runs. These are the TJRs that were chosen to be part of the first wave or the “experimental group.” Their mission was to see what times of the day work best to attack. Additionally, they were assigned to figure out if they should go it alone or in pacts when attacking. Lastly they were assigned the importance of figuring out what vehicles would give them the greatest reward.

Daylight showed the worst results. People in family vehicles often swerved or broke or even stopped. The worse were the families that not only didn’t hit the TJR, but instead got out of their Dodge Caravans to take pictures. Nothing gets a TJR teased more than being photographed while trying to express terror and destruction.

Another result was that big vehicles, or “tractor-trailers”, or “Semi’s” seemed to be the worse vehicles to attempt to destroy. They rarely slowed down and never was damaged caused. The TJR’s suicide was in vain.

Through this “experimental group” the TJRs came to the conclusion that nighttime attacks worked the best, especially if the intended target was a family size vehicle, preferably a small car with very little clearance in the undercarriage. This brought the TJR’s to the second phase or the “practice group.”

It’s not easy jumping in front of a moving car at the right time to cause sufficient damage. Three main TJRs are required. The first is the lookout. He is stationed ¾ of a miles up the road. His job is to look for potential victims to attack. When he sees a small car with a sleepy driver or a family full of young children that adore jackrabbits, the lookout stomps his foot three times on the ground signaling the second vital TJR to get ready. The second TJR is known as “The Sacrifice.” His family will be honored greatly by his willingness to die for this cause. They will be rewarded handsomely if “The Sacrifice” does an incredible amount of damage to the passenger car. The Sacrifice is by far, the most important TJR in these attacks.

The last TJR is the analysis rabbit. His job is to survey the results: see how many people died, see what damage was done to the car, see how far The Sacrifice had to jump to do the best amount of damage. This information is critical to the last phase of the mission.

The third, and final, phase is known as the “All ahead full group” This phase is coming soon. Soon the people of America will know what is like to have their travel plans altered. Soon America will know what the phrase “Road Closures” really means. Soon, very soon, the TJRs will know the taste of victory and asphalt better than they’ve ever known it before.

If it weren’t for the TJRs, we, as a people, would be left to think that those 50 carcasses on the roads of Wyoming were just really dumb animals that can’t navigate a simple two-lane road with out getting hit. And we all hope their not that dumb of creature. I mean jeez, some people hunt jackrabbits. I’d hate to thing the dumb hunters wasted all that time and ammunition for something I could do in a Honda Civic in Wyoming.