Unconditional Love, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise

January 21, 2012 Martha Thomases 6 Comments

Those of you who read my Comic Mix column (and if you don’t, why don’t you?) know that our household was going to be graced with a new cat.

We were.  And now, thanks to Bideawee, we are.

I would love to introduce you to this newest member of our family, but I haven’t seen her for more than a few minutes since bringing her home on Sunday.  She’s eating and using her litter box, but she’s spooked by her new environment.  I’m told this is normal cat behavior and not a personal judgment on me.

Luckily for her, I’m not a Republican.  

If I were a Republican, I’d fire her.  She’s not doing her job, which is to sit on laps, purr, and do cute cat things, like play with toys.  Instead, she’s getting a free hand-out.  What’s going to encourage her to stop all this idle nonsense and get to work?

It’s just like those people on food stamps.  As Newt Gingrich asserted this week, if he were President he would discourage the distribution of food stamps and thereby increase the incentive for people to do their jobs. 

Which is all well and good, except for when you read this in the article I cite above:

“The biggest change over the last 20 years is that the share of working households with children has doubled to just under half of all recipients – a number that has held up during the recession.”

There’s a famous saying that if you give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime.  However, he won’t learn to fish if he’s starving.  Also, he probably won’t be able to pay attention to his lessons if he’s worried about his kids, or already has another job or two.

This is why I’m a supporter of Heifer International.  They provide both food and training for the families they help.  Also,sometimes they provide fiber animals, so the world can have more yarn. 

My new cat, meanwhile, is doing a job for which she wasn’t hired:  teaching me patience, and how to provide unconditional love.  I think she needs a raise.

Maratha Thomases, Media Goddess, doesn’t think that being a cat is a job she could outsource for less money overseas.