Danehy

A few questions to which I would like answers (and a couple others to which I assume there are no answers..

• Why do parents allow their underage kids to get tattoos? I’ll admit that I’ve never understood tattoos, but they’ve been around forever and they’re certainly enjoying a booming popularity these days. If an adult wants to get a tattoo, it’s simply a matter of personal choice; different strokes. But in my work as a high school coach, I see a shocking increase in the number of boys and girls with tattoos.

I realize that there isn’t some sort of magic that happens in that 24-hour period when a person turns from 17 to 18, but gee whiz, how can a parent possibly think that it’s okay for a 14- or 15-year-old kid to get a permanent (as in forever!) mark on his/her body, one that might someday (fairly or unfairly) have an adverse impact on the kid’s employment and career?

Kids are always going to push the boundaries; that’s part of their job description. But there’s a pretty big chasm between “Mom, can I get my ears pierced?” and “Hey, for the rest of my life, I want a painting of Zayn Malik on my left thigh.”

I have another tattoo-related question. When today’s tattooed teenagers are in their 40s, with teenagers of their own, will their kids, in their rebellious stage, say, “Ooh, cool, Mom has a tattoo. I think I’ll get one, too?” Or, when the subject comes up, will it be a big, giant “Ewww!”

• Does Jan Brewer really think that Donald Trump is considering her as a running mate?

I’ve read a couple articles to that effect and I just don’t get it. Of course, a spot on the Trump ticket would not exactly have the bar set at a record height, but really? What would she bring to the ticket? I suppose she could go around the country, stand in front of a crowd of lunkheads and raise the hand with which she signed SB 1070 into law. It’ll be like when Anthony Michael Hall was in the bathroom in Sixteen Candles and he displayed Molly Ringwald’s chonies to a throng of cooing freshman boys.

• Why do people continue to believe that it’s OK to take dogs into a grocery store?

I ranted about this a couple years ago when I had an isolated incident, an encounter with an incredibly loathsome young woman who had a dog inside a shopping cart (a cart that would later be used by some poor, unsuspecting human being). Since that disgusting encounter, I’ve seen three other people with dogs in a store. What the hell is wrong with these people?!

Having been blessed/cursed to have been born and brought up without that filter that keeps other people from blurting things out, I asked all three of those people where they came up with the notion that it’s OK to take a dog into a store where people buy their food.

One moron gave me the lame response, “Dogs are cleaner than people.” That’s incredibly false, a myth only believed by people who are stupid and selfish enough to take a dog into a store. Dude, dogs lick each other’s butts.

Another woman said, “It’s a mammal, just like us.” I asked her if that meant that it was OK to take a horse into a store? Or a pig or a cow?

What bothers me the most is that the gutless store managers just let people get away with it for fear of perhaps offending somebody. Personally, I think they need to be offended, early and often. What’s going to happen is that some innocent shopper is going to get bitten and then we’ll see what happens. I’m kinda hoping that I get bitten. If a dog were to bite me inside a Fry’s or Bashas’ or Costco (three of the places that have allowed dogs in), I’m gonna own me a grocery store. And, for old, fat, white guys, owning a grocery store is pretty high up on one’s fantasy list.

• Has John McCain lost his damn mind?

I’ve always tried to give Sen. McCain the benefit of the doubt because of his service to our country and I realize that all he knows how to do is be in the Senate and he’ll do whatever he can to hang onto that seat. But when he says that the President of the United States is “directly responsible” for the mass shooting in Orlando, he has crossed a line that simply should not be crossed. And while he later tried to walk back his comments, when something that vulgar gets said, it can’t be unsaid. Or, as he claimed, “clarified.”

And here are some musical questions that need to be answered:

• Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? I’ve always thought that it was real life, but Elon Musk (of Tesla fame) recently suggested that we may, indeed, be in the Matrix. Yeah, that’s the guy I want building my next new car.

• Why do fools fall in love? If they didn’t, the Republican Party would completely die out by the next generation.

• Finally, who let the dogs out? I don’t really care. My beef is with whomever it is that keeps letting them in.

This article appears in Jun 23-29, 2016.