from: Sixteen Hours in Qatar. A collection of short stories
From part one—->>> The young girl’s dreams of a 4-H ribbon and a future grass-fed only dairy farm were over. It became a sad story for all concerned.
Begin part two below ——->>
Most readers are probably familiar with the National ESA pet program. The acronym stands for ‘Essentially Spoiled Animals’*(2). The purpose of the support animal organization is to allow anyone to register their pet for privileges beyond the scope of regular pets. These privileges include access to restaurants, supermarkets, liquor stores, ball cages, and even commercial airplanes. ESA rules only require that your pet accompany you on a leash. There is no stipulation that the pet’s owner must hold the end of the leash.
It was the part about commercial airlines that interested us. Abda would benefit greatly if she could live at our second home in Jaipur (India). At best, the accommodations we could afford her at our Santa Fe townhome were adequate, but far from ideal. Despite our city’s cattle town heritage, simple, professional pet sitters were more difficult to find than we ever expected. Besides, Nalini was already poking at her phone and working on the task applying to ESA.
“I don’t think it’s going to be a very big deal,” she said,” judging from these qualifying questions, most people are terribly deceptive, or lying their hearts out with their answers. This questionnaire is a joke. There can’t possibly be this many emotionally disturbed people, as we see support animals out there. Nobody checks or even cares.” She concluded, “We’ll only have to fudge on the answers a little bit, maybe less than most of these other people do.”
“Fudge… like fudge on what?” I asked, thinking that Abda might be a little hard to conceal.
“Oh, only about her species and her weight,” Nalini said with confidence. ” And we’ll need to find a doctor to certify her.” She paused, “Doesn’t your brother have a doctorate in something?”
“Uh, yeah, horticulture, with a minor in esoteric landscaping.”
“Perfect!”
Soon, Nalini was on the phone with my brother, Darrin, who had just been fired by Email from his position as General Inspector for the Department of Agriculture. He was more than eager, he was excited to help us. “Yeah, fuck the system! Just tell me what I can do…”
Everything worked out exactly as if we had planned it. As it turned out, discriminatory ESA rules regarding maximum weight or species identification simply don’t exist. The Fair Housing Act and Title VII of the Constitution have cleared a path for anyone wishing to take any animal pretty much anywhere, including into the air. We were astonished and wish to thank Empire Airlines for modifying a 747 to accommodate our Abda- ESA pet.
*1- “Who’ll Stop the Reyn”, (soon to be available from Piedmont Publishing at a bookstore near you).
*2- ESA also known as- essentially spoiled adults.
-dp-
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Please note: the author bears no grievance or ill feeling towards people who are honestly in need of ESA animals. I do object to those people who abuse the system and then parade their pets around just because the system is so easy to abuse.Please ‘like’ if you do, ‘comment’ if you can, enjoy none the less. Thanks- dalton
Piedmont Publishers
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torn words, 
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