Animal Testing

So as most of you know, I've been working on one or another blog entry for a while, meaning basically I put an idea into a tentative post, to go back and develop later when I have nothing else to blog about...

So... in California, there are animal rights activists - so much so that even the homeless have pets, much to the chagrin of Roy... At any rate, I started thinking about animals and all they do for us - as you know, I'm not a pet person, but I like animals... for food and circuses and whatnot...

The other day I was watching an infomercial that claimed the super shampoo they were selling (sidenote: quick RIP to Billy Mays... that dude was awesome, and the embodiment of the American dream... Seriously, check out wikipedia... I mean, he's gotta have the Pearly Gates looking sparkly clean by now, don't you think??) Anyway, the shampoo was "not tested on animals" - which prompted the following thought process:Who cares? And why is this important enough to mention in trying to sell our stuff?

Well it's important because it's controversial...

But why is it controversial??

Because it's the scientists and big pharm vs. the animals...

Who has the better gripe??

I think the animals do, but only for one reason: scientists are idiots, and Tiff is right not to trust them... (Follow me here...)

The problem with animal testing arises from a misunderstanding of the word 'testing...' To me, 'testing' something means using something in the manner it was intended to be used, to see if you get the desired result... So to test shampoo on a monkey, you would first shampoo the monkey's hair - then rinse the monkey - and finally smell the monkey to see if the monkey still smells like a monkey...

If, rather than smelling like a combination of monkey sweat and poo, the monkey now smells like a combination of strawberries and wildflowers - success! Otherwise, it's back to the lab again...

The animal rights folks will lead you to believe horror stories about how scientists smear shampoo directly into the monkey's eyes to see how they'll react, but I think that such cases are probably rare, and result mainly from inadequate training of the scientists...

Maybe the scientists just need to be told what shampoo is actually for, and that they can assume that having shampoo smeared into your eyes (or your monkey's eyes) is going to hurt like hell, so they don't really need to test for that... I suggest giving the shampoo testing scientists the following checklist:

The first box is already checked, so they'd be like, "Oh, that's right, I don't have to worry about that one..."

But alas, the scientists don't share all the blame... I also think that the animal rights activists haven't thought through the ramifications of NOT testing products on animals...

If we can't use human shampoo on monkeys, then what are we supposed to use to clean our monkeys? Monkey shampoo, right? Well who do you think they test monkey shampoo on, genius?? It's a vicious cycle where we all end up dirty and smelling like stank instead of honeysuckle and vanilla.. and by "we" I mean all things possible...

The way it is, each species should be allowed to pick another species to stand in for it during testing: so humans could pick monkeys, monkeys could pick dogs, dogs could pick cats... all the way down to the animals that don't know any better, like the cockroach and people who watch The Bachelor...

The whole schlemoyle basically comes down to is this: every product is tested on somebody (read: something...) If your shampoo wasn't tested on animals, then guess what? It was tested on humans.... There isn't really any alternative, is there?

If the first bottle of Generic Shampoo X rolls off the assembly line without Generic Shampoo X ever having touched the head of some animal, then you the consumer are the lucky animal who gets to test it... (sidenote: if the product is named Generic Shampoo X, then

there's a good chance that there are some monkeys working in the marketing department - I mean come on, put some effort into it...)

Now I'm not necessarily opposed to testing shampoo on humans, but it doesn't seem like an improvement over animal testing unless I get to pick the humans...

I would start with the crowd down at the bus station, and move onto skinny jeans guy and then go to guy who wears his baseball cap to the prom... and for the latter two groups, I'd require the eye-smearing test on principle.

I gotta be honest though - don't shampoo monkeys have a pretty great life compared to their caged brethren?? I imagine the conversation that would go on between an escaped test animal and his wilderness-dwelling cousin:

Wild Monkey: Hey man, where you been?

Test Monkey: Dude, I got tranq'd and carted off to a shampoo testing lab.

Wild Monkey: Fo' realsies? That sounds terrible...

Test Monkey: Yeah, I got shampoo'd like six times a day - I smelled like freaking strawberries and wildflowers...

Wild Monkey: Man that sucks...

Test Monkey: Yeah, and that was bad enough, but then some new guy smeared shampoo in my eyes. My EYES - can you believe it?.

Wild Monkey: Wow.

Test Monkey: I know - it's like... read the checklist bro!! Anyways, I had enough of that, so I escaped. So... what happened to your leg?

Wild Monkey: Cheetah ate it.

Test Monkey: Bummer.