longer I live on this strange planet of ours, the more I am convinced that there are some things that I am just not meant to understand! Now, this is, I
believe, a good thing, as it makes for a considerably less stressful life than I
used to tolerate in the days when I genuinely believed that everything really
does genuinely happen for a reason. Allow me to present an example. For many
years, I lived within commuting distance of Tokyo, and so that is what I did
every day ? I commuted. Each and every morning, I left my shoebox at 06.55,
walked to the station and caught exactly the same train at 07.08 (it was never
late, of course). And, each and every morning, as I got on the Tokyo bound
semi-express train, the same, slight framed, reasonably well dressed businessman
got off. Wearing a wig. With an all too apparent bald patch smack bang in the
middle
http://www.teamgiantsshop.com/Youth-Brad-Wing-Elite-Jersey/ , right above his eyes! This was a significant section of his wig where there was
not one single hair present, where the brown canvas underneath did not just show
through, but visually assaulted your eyeballs. Did he know about it? How could
he not know about it, unless there were no mirrors in hs home (or, indeed, his
entire world!)? If so, did he care? Why was he wearing it in the first place?
Surely the idea of the wig is to cover bald bits, not to accentuate and
exaggerate them?? Now, please do not think I am insulting or mocking people who
choose to wear wigs or toupees. I write these words as someone who is regularly
likened to a billiard ball, so I understand all about baldness, although it has
never particularly concerned me one way of the other. Nevertheless, this guy
perplexed me for so, so long, until eventually I decided that short of asking
him (and that was never going to happen, was it ? especially in Japan) I would
just have to accept the fact that I would never know the answer. Which brings me
to dogs that wear clothes. Something that, once again, no matter how many years
I still have on this planet, I will never understand
http://www.teamgiantsshop.com/Youth-Bobby-Rainey-Elite-Jersey/ , and have therefore officially given up trying. And, in a somewhat spooky
parallel with my erstwhile Japanese friend ? I never actually spoke to him, of
course, but I began to think of him as my friend ? I can never really ask a dog
exactly why it is that they dress up! Now, I obviously accept that it is not
Fido?s own decision to kit himself out with a natty little tartan coat, any more
than those dogs that you see on supposedly comedic posters wearing sunglasses,
actually believe themselves to look cool! Furthermore, were I to ask the owners
why they love to dress up their four-legged friend, I am sure that I would
receive perfectly logical and sensible answers, that dog clothes are merely an
outward sign of their love for their four legged kindred spirit, almost like
treating them like members of the family. See, I guess that my problem is
threefold. First, I live with my wife, kids and a very black, square built lump
of a Golden Retriever, Bernese Mountain Dog cross called Jack (my daughter was
into that Beanstalk fellow at the time) in a place where temperatures, even at
midnight on the coldest day of the year (if we had one) never, ever fall below
mid 20?s degrees Celsius. Thus
http://www.teamgiantsshop.com/Youth-Andre-Williams-Elite-Jersey/ , he has absolutely no need at all for clothes, nor does any other dog in this
country. Nevertheless, given a certain type of dog (small, high pitched
yapbarkscreech) and (even more relevantly) a certain type of owner (old, female,
widowed, probably quite lonely) then, even here, they are dressed up. Second, I
grew up in England in those pre-Global warming days when winters truly were
winters. Our terrier never had clothes, and I strongly suspect that, if for some
strange reason some deranged Aunt had decided to start giving Christmas gifts of
haute couture garments to the family mongrel, then his opportunities for
exercise would have been severely limited by our unwillingness to be seen
outdoors with him! Not the done thing in the industrial North of England in
those days, I can assure you! Thirdly, and finally coming around to the true
purpose of this diatribe. Take a look at some of the myriad websites selling dog
clothes. Now, I am not daft enough to mention any particular site or sites, but
look at some of the slogans that these sites use. They are all aimed at the dog
himself, as if the dog can read the site
http://www.teamgiantsshop.com/ , and then make his or her own decision! 'Buy Only The Best', 'Top Quality Tartan
Coats' or whatever (and those are both, incidentally, made up, or, at least, I
hope that they are!). They do not add the bit at the end 'For Your Dog' or 'For
Fido', which they would surely logically do if the site owner were aiming to
seel these garments to the dog owner! Do these people believe that it is the
canine member of the household who makes the purchasing decisions? If so, then
the world has indeed advanced much further than perhaps it appears from my
obviously limited perspective sitting here writing this! But, read some of the
plethora of websites out there, and it is very hard not to arrive at this
conclusion. The dogs make the decisions ?