True Story©… Nauga Advocacy and Awareness

 

(yes, this is what a Nauga looks like)  Image Credit: Somewhere on the Googles

     Part of the act of being a newly-decent, no-longer-a-supervillain human being includes advocacy for those with less than myself.  I’ll slide a couple bucks to an unhoused person, canned goods to food drives; even Shaggy Thunder was an SPCA-adopted puppy.
Say hi, little buddy.

(note: this is an old picture...  he's much fatter now)

     … so yeah…  One of my soft spots is for dogs in particular but for animals in general.  I kind of RAGE at the very thought of people abusing/abandoning puppies, yet the BookFace algorithm and my apparent obsession puppy videos serves it that I see such shit daily in suggested Reels.
In the interest of not triggering myself, we will not go any further into the whole animal abuse thing.

     Week before last, though, while I was scrolling on The Bookface™, and one of those sad puppy rescues came up.  It was heart-wrenching.  An emaciated mother dog doing the best she could to protect her six babies and a rescue organization's harrowing efforts to coax her from under an abandoned structure so they could get them all safely to shelter.  The video was in Portuguese so I don't have a clue what was being said.
They eventually got her and the little babies out, but I had to do SOMETHING to lighten my mood.

I made a phone call…

[…]: “Hello, thank you for calling PETA”

Me: “Hi, were you aware that one in five naugas will never make it to the age of sexual maturity?”

PETA: “I-I’m sorry…  what?”

Me: “The naugahyde industry is killing naugas at an alarming rate for record profits and--…”

PETA: “Sir, naugahyde is synthetic.”

Me: “Ma’am…  Open up your Google machine and search the word ‘hide’ and you will clearly find that it sometimes refers to skin.”

PETA: “But”

Me: “And the naugahyde industry is running interference on us by spelling it with a Y instead of an I, so they can claim it isn’t real.”

PETA: “Wow”

Me: “Right!?  Meanwhile, they’re capturing wild naugas and--…”

**CLICK**

Me: “Hello?  This bish hung up on me!”

     I will not be deterred in my mission!  I called back…

PETA: “Hello, thanks for calling PETA.”

Me: “She hung up on me!”

PETA: “’She’ who?”

Me: “Whoever it was that took my call, I didn’t get a name.”

PETA: “Well I will attempt to help, what’s the matter?”

Me: “NAUGAS!”

PETA: “WHAT?!!?”

Me: “Calm down, I said ‘naugas,’ as in the creature being taken to the brink of extinction in the wild due to the naugahyde industry.”

PETA: “Sir…”

Me: “Hmm?”

PETA: “You ARE aware that naugahyde is a synthetic material, one that we here at PETA actually prefer to natural leather.”

Me: “Like I told the last lady…  Open up your Google machine and search the word ‘hide’ and you will clearly find that it sometimes refers to skin.  They got y’all snowed by misspelling it.”

PETA: “Amazing…”

Me: “So here I am, trying to work whatever avenues I can to drum up some awareness for the ever-dwindling wild nauga population.”

PETA: “Sir, I just don’t think that there is anything we can do for you here.”

Me: “’Can’ do?  Or ‘will’ do?”

PETA: “Well given the details of this conversation, I am not sure the difference matters.”

Me: “What is that supposed to mean?”

PETA: “Nothing…  Nevermind”

Me: “Whatever…  So what is the course of action here.  How do we get a Sarah McLachlan commercial, really up the tearjerker ante.”

PETA: “Hahahaha!”

Me: “Ma’am, this is no laughing matter, naugas is out here dying in record numbers!  Only y'all can save them!”

**CLICK**

Me: “What the gosh-darned fuck!?  They did it again!”

     If you’ve ever worked in a large call center, you know that the more often one person calls in one day the more likely they are to get people who not only know each other but will wind up discussing the crazy-ass caller.
As a call center veteran who was bored as hell and also has a spot of hostility for this organization, I waited ten minutes to let them talk about it and then decided I had time today…

PETA: “Hello, thank you for calling PETA”

Me: “THINK OF THE NAUGAS!”

     The line went blank for a moment.  This guy had put me on mute, ostensibly to speak to people around him about the call he had.  A call that two of them had previously fielded.  When the phone came off of mute, I could still hear people laughing in the background.

PETA: “Sir, what can we do for you here.”

Me: “Look, PETA could be leaning on the naugahyde industry the same way the do fur.”

PETA: “…”

Me: “All the captive nauga mills?  They would lose business to pressure from the market and have to shut down.  The captive naugas could be repatriated into the wild”

PETA: “Wow”

Me: “Captive naugas would become feral naugas.  One day, God willing, they may merge populations with the few remaining wild naugas and naugas will thrive.”

PETA: “Sir, I have been advised by my manager that if you continue to harass us with this, we will be forced to investigate you through your phone number and pursue legal action”

Me: “Oh…  Have a wonderful day.”

     Just like that damned PETA.  Always litigious for the wrong damn reasons.  Shutting down loving and responsible breeders and interrupting peoples’ lives while also themselves running more kill shelters than anyone else in the world.  But I also can't afford a lawyer.
Fuck me, I’ve messed around and let my entertaining release to make me as mad as the event that sent me looking to lighten up.

     I gotta stop letting shit get to me.