All too often, the tales we are told, the perspectives we are shown, have their foundation in the dark, in the evils that really bad people do.
We read stories, see photos, watch videos that all share a familiar narrative thread: Why are people so awful? There is no good left in the world anymore. How can people do things like that? Nobody stopped to help.
The problem with these stories – every single one – is that they are uniformly told as the villain’s tale.
The villain doesn’t deserve a tale (nor a tail, for that matter). The villain doesn’t deserve our time or our attention.
Instead, I propose a different vantage from which to view these stories: There is light. There is kindness. Somebody stopped to help, or we wouldn’t know the story. People are capable of greatness.
In their podcast The Friendship Onion, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan wax poetic about their online game, League of Legends (when they aren’t talking about The Lord of the Rings and tasting new-to-them snacks). Apparently, per one of them (yes, I can tell their voices apart; yes, I know what they look like; yes, I know who played Merry and who played Pippin; no, I can’t remember exactly who said what during every episode), a person can have a “cat on a magic carpet” as an avatar.
A world with such delights as a podcast called The Friendship Onion, tasty snacks of every sort (N.B., yours truly should not be allowed in Aldi, Home Goods, or Burlington, or anywhere chips are sold for that matter; Clancy’s Cuban Sandwich potato chips are UNBELIEVABLE in several senses. Also, Herr’s cheesy poofs with Stubb’s Sweet Heat BBQ flavor – JOY), and avatar magic carpet cats, is exactly as wonderful as Louis Armstrong wanted us to understand.
You see, the real story is all about the heroes and the creatures who save them.
People like you. People like the staff and volunteers at Tabby’s Place and all around the globe. These are the people who stop. These are the people who do good. These are the people who leave home without a kitten and arrive home with a bedraggled creature that becomes their best friend and beloved sweet ‘ums and widdle wuvvy duvvy and baaaaaaabbbbyyyy for the next 15 to 24 years.
I’ll tell you something else. The cats only remember the heroes, you know, the people they save.
Cats like Siesta and Fiesta (really, those names need to be flipped!) may not be fans of each other, or of any other cats so much, but they love people regardless of what may or may not have happened in the past. Present lap, and Fiesta shall snuggle. Present fingers, and Siesta will fall over himself getting the scratchies in the right spot.
And then there are cats like Benny (the face of the 2021 Linda Fund Matching Challenge) and Hector, who have been put through their paces and come from far away places (okay, they both came from the same place, but it is pretty far away). No matter what travails they withstood, their focus is on a bright future loaded with snuggly beds, tempting treats, an unreasonable amount of fish mush, and much admiration from very many admirers.
Now do you see the light?
Oh, by the way, Hector and Benny would like you to know that there have been scientific studies (prove me wrong!) done to determine the weight of rainbows. They’re pretty light.*
*Author’s note: I totally stole that joke from Hank and John Green whose podcast Dear Hank and John is a glorious source of deliciously terrible jokes. Ask me about an acorn! In a nutshell, it’s a tree. BWAAA HAAA HAAA!