paying attention

so i just walked over to the other pet food store (not counting that one down the street, which seems to be some very suspicious non-pet food store, posing as a pet food store but apparently using the leftover supplies of the last pet food store that used to be there) to get some more cat food for mika, having to stock up before i go off to pittsburgh for a few days. yet when i get there, i notice that they no longer have any of the standard iams dry cat food that i usually buy, so i ask them about it, and they say that iams is not only owned by proctor & gamble, which already does animal testing for numerous products, but iams themselves also does animal testing, and therefore they won’t sell them anymore. i did end up walking to the other store and getting a bag of iams, but now that i know, from now on i’ll buy some pet-friendly food. it seems particularly important, since it’s actual food for my pet, right?

i used to be a lot better at this, being aware of who was testing what, carrying my peta good shopper guide around, and making sure to consciously support companies that didn’t hurt animals. but it seems i’ve forgotten, or at least have become less aware. call it laziness, or just getting more apolitical in my old age.

on the way back from the second pet food store, i walked past this three-car garage on valencia, which only has a sliding metal gate for a door, where there’s almost always someone working on some car or another. and it was just then, after having walked past it for years and years, that i finally realized what was going on there, that someone was actually fixing cars there, a sort of auto shop on the sly.

it’s so obvious, now that i think of it, but i never really realized it. maybe i’m not paying attention after all.

Posted at March 1, 2004 6:28 PM