Whistle Wit

I have had my dog for four years now. My previous pet ran away one day and while I really hoped it would come back sadly it never did. I decided that in order to lower the possibility of the horrible experience occurring again I would try to provide a very loving home my new dog. I have succeeded in doing so over the last 4 years and as part of this I have regularly purchased the best dog supplies on the market from various top retailers. I rationalize this behavior and I hope those reading this will agree with me by arguing that if my favourite pet had money he would surely do the same for me. He offers me a loving welcome every time I return from work and I therefore ensure that I buy dog supplies that keep him occupied while I am away. You must remember that just like humans dogs can get lonely and while you cant be with your favourite pet 24 hours a day, you can ensure you buy him nice things.

I sometimes wonder what car I would choose to drive if I could own any car that I desired and cost was not an issue.  Although I do not think of myself as particularly materialistic, I confess that I think I would like to own a Mercedes of some kind, just to have the experience of doing so.  I have had the opportunity once or twice over the years of driving a Mercedes and I have found then to drive and ride well.  I have never been able to afford such an expensive car and I don’t think that I ever will.  Even if I somehow found enough money to be able to make the purchase, I doubt that I could afford the insurance and, even if I could, I would probably choose to spend the money elsewhere as the car I drive is not that important to me.  Nevertheless, I do sometimes wonder what it would be like to own a car that is as luxurious as a Mercedes and that other people look at and often admire.  Ah well, a girl can dream, I guess.

Many years ago, when I was in college, I took a class in classical political philosophy.  The main thrust of the class was to study and analyze Plato’s Republic.  I had never before taken any type of a philosophy course and, though I enjoyed reading, I had never read any works of philosophy.  I suppose I had some naïve idea that, by reading the works of great philosophers such as Plato, I would somehow find answers to all of life’s great questions.  I was at a stage in my life where I was looking for those answers and I suppose I hoped to find them between the pages of a book.  So I signed up and embarked on a study of Plato’s great work, listening intently to the debates that took place in class, though rarely participating.  At the end of the course, I had an opportunity to speak one on one with the professor.  He asked me what I had thought of the course and what I thought of my first experience reading Plato.  I confessed that I had found my introduction to Plato to be somewhat disappointing.  The professor gasped, probably taken aback.  He asked why I had been disappointed.  I responded that I had hoped to find answers in the course and instead I had found the Republic to merely stimulate more questions in my mind.  He smiled at me and said that it appeared that Plato had done his job well and I should not be disappointed.  It was the questions, and not necessarily the answers, that were the goal of philosophy.  In other words, it is how to think, not what to think that is important.  When I look back now, I realize that in many ways this class, my venture into the unknown, was my favorite class.

Although it has often been said that a man’s best friend is his dog, I submit that a woman’s best friend is often her cat.  At least, I often find that to be true in my life.  I work long hours at a demanding job.  I cannot always control the time when I will finally drag myself in at the end of a long day.  When I do arrive home, however, my cats are always happy to see me.  Best of all, I do not need to worry about the fact that I have been gone for hours and not available to walk them.  Also, I do not have to rush to snap on their leashes to walk up and down the block waiting for them to “do their business.”  They have been quite self-sufficient and used their litter box at their leisure, thank you very much.  I only have to feed them, brush them if they are long-haired, and make sure they get appropriate medical care.  Other than that, their litter box is my only pet-related chore.  And in return, my cats are not the aloof creatures that so many people make them out to be.  Instead, they are loving, affectionate, furry bundles of love.  And at the end of a long, hard day, that is all that I want and need.