Step Away From The Porcupine

The following post is a ramble. It has little or nothing to do with NLP, life coaching or self-development but it’s fun so read it anyway. I was doing some research for a speech I was writing and found myself trawling the Internet. Before you jump to inaccurate and quite frankly slanderous conclusions, it wasn’t that kind of a trawl. I was reading about strange laws that were still technical enforceable because nobody has bothered to remove them from the statute, honest.

To me laws are just snapshots in time. What appears reasonable and just today may seem ridiculous in 100 years time. After all there were (enforced) English laws that taxed windows and beards and made being a Catholic a burning offense. I mean for goodness sake, not even Texas burned anybody as a punishment, did they? So whereas most laws are moral, ethical and just, some are quite obviously simply a microcosm of a particular age. For instance, in England under Queen Victoria only a century or so ago Opium was the drug of choice for the aristocracy and considered a cool thing to do. In fact, there was no law forbidding its use for a number of years after her death. Those whacky commie drug-taking Brits I bet you’re thinking. Well HA! Is what I say, because Opium, Heroin and Cocaine were not made illegal in the US until 1914! Who are the hippies now huh, my Woodstock loving friend? On one day taking these drugs was perfectly legal and even considered trendy by the aristocracy. Yet the following day you could get rolled up in a mattress and beaten to a pulp by an over enthusiastic police officer, or maybe simply arrested and taken to trial, for doing exactly the same thing.

Prior to moving to Florida my wife was also offered a job in Baltimore, Maryland. At the time we had decided against it because neither my wife nor myself liked the cold winters and on further investigation I think we made the right decision. Did you know that in Baltimore It’s illegal to take a lion to the movies? That’s outrageous and I am just glad for Leo our pet lions sake we didn’t move there because the big fella loves his weekly trips to the movies more than going to the park and mauling the local kids. I was also disappointed to find out that it’s illegal to throw bales of hay from a second-story window within the city limits. That’s most irritating for the part-time farmers amongst us, how the hell are we supposed to get the hay downstairs?

As well as Baltimore my wife was also offered a job at UCLA. Now I liked this choice because one of the main reasons that we moved here is for the weather and there is actually a law in California that guarantees sunshine to the masses. I’m not sure whom you need to sue if it fails to materialize, but the thought is there. Whereas the guaranteed sunshine was a definite bonus it was tempered by the fact that you are not permitted to wear cowboy boots unless you already own at least two cows. I presume if you have two cows and somebody makes you an offer you can’t refuse for one of them, you would have to do some kind of buy a cow get cowboy boots cheap kind of deal to avoid being locked up.

I also noted that my annual trips to San Francisco may have to come to an end as ‘Persons classified as “ugly” may not walk down any street’. How embarrassing would that be, getting arrested for being ugly? I’d almost rather be caught voting on American Idol.

Thankfully we found ourselves living in Florida, grateful that our State constitution allows freedom of speech, a trial by jury, and pregnant pigs to not be confined in cages. A fine law if ever there was one, although I was bitterly disappointed to read that having sexual relations with a porcupine is still illegal. Has anybody asked the poor porcupines what they think about the matter? I suspect not.

I did notice that Florida is doing all it can to increase revenues from parking meters because if you leave your elephant tied to a parking meter, the parking fee has to be paid just as it would for a vehicle. I suppose that is because the Police were struggling to tell the difference between a Hummer and an elephant that had been sprayed yellow. So there you have it, a post about as pointless as a shaven porcupine and not nearly as cute.

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