Tie o’ the Day #2 is a ritzy Beau Brummel. That just plain sounds snooty, doesn’t it?
Skitter must have snuck into the tie closet while I was watching Judge Judy. She came waltzing out of the bedroom in this tie. Of course, she was trying to wrangle her way into going with me to The Pub.
I used to be able to tell Skitter she couldn’t go to The Pub with me cuz she was a minor, but she’s not a minor anymore. I had to break it to her this afternoon that she will never be legally allowed in The Pub—because she is not a people. She had no idea she was “different”, so that was an enormous shock to her skittish, canine system.
I explained to her about prejudice and discrimination. About its many forms and guises. About bigots. About how every living thing is “different” in some way (many ways, in fact), depending on what “they” say is the “norm”. I explained that the categories and mechanisms used to commit bigotry are completely arbitrary. They bear no resemblance to the truth, beauty, and goodness of existence. Bigotry is reductive and riddled with the fear of everything except itself.
Skitter pondered seriously about the in’s, and out’s, and up’s, and down’s, and sideway’s of what I said. She thought and thought, until her tiny thinker was exhausted. And then she said, “But can I still wear the tie?”
Now, that’s a perfect perspective: Just go about your life, in wonder and love and ties.