Rant #2,480: All Together Now

Heck, are we in the middle of a cataclysm right now or what?

The coronavirus is still as rampant as ever, and kids still don't know if they are going to school or if school is coming to them, at home.

High school sports are OK if you live in Suffolk County, but if you live in neighboring Nassau County, it is a no go--so kids in Massapequa can't play high school soccer but two miles away across the county line in Amityville, they can.

We have what appears to be a senseless murder in Wisconsin, but, of course, people are so quick to pass judgement before the entire story is told, which means that our world leaders in the NBA and MLB decided that without knowing anything other than a black man was involved, they would not play their scheduled games.

Then we have Hurricane Laura, which is set to eat up the Gulf Coast of our country like we haven't seen since Hurricane Katrina--but this storm is supposed to be much, much worse.

And we have the Republican National Convention, which, of course, is being ripped apart by Democrats, but let's face it, both this convention and the previously held Democratic one are more "rah-rah" events than anything else, and they are always both ripe for criticism.

And with all this going on, my family has its own cataclysm, one that has ripped us apart at the very seams:

Animals attacking our full garbage pails.

This has been happening for a generation, and it has been done by feral cats, which according to New York State law that goes back to the current governor's father when he was in office, you cannot do really anything about.

In New York State at least, feral cats are permitted to wander around aimlessly, do what they want to destroy property, and exist in sort of a nebulous lifestyle; we generally do not see them, but once night comes, they go out and perform their acts of destruction.

The only thing you can do with feral cats is to have them rounded up by Animal Control, spayed and neutered, and then they are let out on the street again.

You cannot poison them, you cannot act upon them, you cannot do anything to them to stop their lust for not only food, but procreation among their herd.

Yes, they mate with their own family, so there is absolutely no way to stop them from creating a next generation from the current generation, and this has gone on and on for generations of these animals.

And when they want food, well, they are as vicious as cats can be.

They topple over garbage pails--often destroying the plastic pails with their teeth and paws--and rummage through these pails for any scraps of food they can find.

So when you go outside in the morning to pick up the newspaper, as I regularly do, you also have to pick up the debris strewn around by these vicious animals.

Heck, I admit, I would poison each and every one of them if I could, but these animals have the law behind them, and they also have many human backers who obviously think that cats roaming the neighborhood causing destruction is a good thing ... or maybe they haven't had to pick up the garbage strewn around their own homes after these cats' dinnertime.

There are several ways to handle this. One, you can purchase over-priced garbage bags that give off an odor that these animals supposedly cannot stomach. We have tried that, and it works to a certain degree, but when these cats are hungry, even they can hold these noses and get what they want and remove themselves from the situation, so those types of bags only help minimally.

You can purchase contraptions to keep the cats out, to fence the pail area in so that the cats cannot possibly get in, but if you have $500 spare cash to give us to do that, maybe we would welcome it with open arms.

What my family and I are going to do for now on is such a simple thing to do that it is incredible that we did not think of it before.

We are going to put the garbage pails in the garage. There is nothing in the garage now--all of our cars are outside in the driveway or parked in the street, so there is nothing in that garage other than remnants of my father's days as a cab driver, barbecue materials, stuff like that.

Sure, placing the plastic garbage cans inside the garage might smell it up, and while the garage is connected to the house, there is no direct connection to the house--no door, just structurally--so we don't think the smell will enter the house.

We have to give it a try, because once again, at 6 a.m. this morning, I was picking up a wave of garbage that was strewn all over the driveway.

Using my feet and the top of the can that was ripped off, I think I was able to pick up just about all of it, but you know what? This is not something that I will ever get used to doing at 6 a.m. in the morning or at any other time of the day or night.

It is enough already, and if we cannot permanently remove these felines, we will do the next best thing, which is to remove at least some of their food supply.

Dinnertime is over for these pests, and that starts NOW.