Why America Has Nothing to Fear from Japan

It's been a while since Delicious Animals featured an animal-related item. No comment on the deliciousness of the below story. Except for the irony, which is very tasty…

Thousands of people have been 'fleeced' into buying neatly coiffured lambs they thought were poodles.

Entire flocks of lambs were shipped over from the UK and Australia to Japan by an internet company and marketed as the latest 'must have' accessory.

But the scam was only spotted after a leading Japanese actress said her 'poodle' didn't bark and refused to eat dog food. Maiko Kawakami, who starred in the Japanese thriller Violent Cop, showed photographs of her pet on a television talk show only to be told it wasn't a dog - but was in fact a lamb.

The discovery prompted hundreds of women to contact the police with similar problems and the authorities believe as many as 2,000 people have been conned.

'We launched an investigation after we were made aware that a company was selling sheep as poodles,' a police spokesman told The Sun. 'Sadly, we think there is more than one company operating in this way. The sheep are believed to have been imported from overseas - Britain and Australia.'

Poodles are famously used by the rich and glamourous on the continent but are extremely rare in Japan, with many people having little idea what they look like.

The company, which translates as Poodles as Pets, sold the 'poodles' for £630, about half the cost of a normal poodle but is now understood to have been shut down.
From www.metro.co.uk

The Explanation

Mo suggested recently that I could reduce my frustration at stupid people by liberally flipping them off. While I wish my perfect moral standards prevented me from taking his advice, there's a less admirable reason.

One afternoon when I was seventeen I was driving with the car windows down. The horn of the vehicle behind me sounded a couple of times. Wondering who had the nerve to honk at me when I wasn't going too slow or playing my music too loud, I extended my left arm out the window and gave the person behind me the bird without even looking up.

As I reached an intersection at which I needed to turn left, the car behind me passed slowly on the right so I could see the rude person who had honked. I don't recall what I was expecting to see, but I vividly recall the feeling in my stomach when I realized who it was. The honker was someone I knew well. A member of my ward. An older gentleman who I home taught. He was also the Stake Patriarch. Turns out he was just honking as a greeting.

At the intersection he looked far more hurt and disappointed than offended. We never discussed the event.

I'm sure there's a primary or young men's lesson in there somewhere. All I know is that my bird-flipping mechanism broke that day.

Do Not Read This

It will remind you of your own frustrating experiences with stupid people or reinforce the negative ideas you have about me. Either way you should do something better with your time than read this.

Seriously, close the browser now.

Yesterday I called my accountant to check on the status of our taxes. While the senior guy is decent, there's a new junior person every year and the one we got this time wasn't finished yet. She assured me they would be ready today. I arranged to have Denise pick them up so I could review them. Accountant agreed to have everything ready for pick-up first thing this morning. When Denise called, the accountant says she mailed them. Two business days before everything has to be filed she mails documents for my review. Moron.

It was a busy morning so I didn't get second breakfast until 10am. The craptacular closet of questionable food that passes for a cafeteria here closes at 10:30am. I made some toast and went looking for the peanut butter. One of the employees decided that he couldn't wait 25 minutes until they closed to refill the peanut butter bucket, so I got to stand around for five minutes while he reloaded it from half-full to full. Bad thinking, slow moving food service worker then looks bugged when I ask for the peanut butter bucket that was sitting next to him on the counter out of my reach while he moved on to his next task. Imbecile.

Before Denise reminds me of it, I know that my charity faileth often. At least I feel better now and will be able to handle the next dose of stupidity with an eye roll and a sigh.