Pissed Pissed Pissed

Oh man, am I pissed off at the TV people. The interview had gone well, but they edited the hell out of it. And then had the nerve to make it seem as though owning pet chinchillas as "exotic pets" was exactly as bad as owning, like, pet tigers or something. All the rest of the people they talked to were like people who wanted to shut down the "exotic pet trade." I am pissed, pissed, pissed, because I *told* them the difference between owning a guinea pig and owning a tiger, and I told them about the differences between animals that aren't really domesticated, like prairie dogs, and animals that have been domesticated for thousands of years, like rabbits. For pete's sake, chinchillas are just about extinct in the wild; there is no "chinchilla smuggling" from South America, because most of the chinchillas now in existence are ones bred here in the US!!!! They really mangled it. Luckily, about 10 of my friends who were watching instantly sent the TV station really strong letters about it - as one friend said to them 87% of the animals in this house are rescued, and NONE were purchased from the "exotic pet trade." The reporter compared buying exotic pets to buying smuggled drugs, for cripes sake.

On the good side, no matter what other people they interviewed, I came across as a very sane and sensible person; I sounded too rational for anyone to believe that I was in any way encouraging smuggling in endangered macaws or any other stupid thing. No matter how badly they edited the tape, the worst they could do was make my house look messy; they couldn't make me sound like a bearded-tattooed-libertarian-insane-tiger owner.

Still pissed off.

On the other hand,

when we got to the theatre tonight for rehearsal, we found that they had built Persephone a lovely large cage backstage, so she doesn't have to stay in her pet carrier, and they had made a wood plaque with her name engraved on it, and lined it with a nice thick towel. How sweet!