During my post-lunch walk today I saw a woman walking an outwardly spoiled Yorkshire Terrier on a leash while also pushing a fancy pet stroller. You know the kind; fresh groomed cut; shiny white fangs; ribbons and bows; blingy designer collar; claws painted fire-engine red. Remember that I’m writing about the dog here, not the woman.
Seeing that dog immediately transported me back to when my Aunt Lois’ pampered Yorkie, Coco, ran up from behind me and viciously bit me on my right Achilles tendon for no reason. It was a completely unprovoked attack. I was thirteen years old, and the injury hobbled me a little bit and so I limped around for a few days afterward looking like some dumbass poor suburban white boy trying to emulate the homeboy street walk of a hardcore inner-city gangbanger.
It’s strange how a mundane observation like seeing that Yorkie can immediately trigger an unpleasant experience from decades past. It also occurred to me how ridiculous it was that a little dog could be a PTSD inducing monster for a grown man. Coco’s bite was the first but certainly not the last dog bite I would ever receive from a lapdog, but the embarrassment of getting victimized by that spoiled little dog still haunts me, and although punting Coco across the room did flash across my mind at the time, retaliation was not an option because my Uncle Benny was standing right next to Aunt Lois with a half-crooked smile. It was as if he was saying, “Welcome to my world, kid.”
I had a best friend named Mark Flaata who lived on the corner of Cartwright Avenue and Chandler Blvd in North Hollywood, which was only a couple of blocks west from the apartment I was living in with my mom and siblings which was near Cahuenga Blvd and Chandler. Mark’s mom ran a small business named Showtime Kennels out of the house. The red and white sign on the corner of the property read:
Mark apparently held an unpaid intern position with Showtime Kennels management that could best be described as Kennel Technician III, which involved the following dog kennel related maintenance tasks:
Pick up the empty food bowls. Wash the empty food bowls. Scoop up the dog poop. Hose out the pee. Fill the water bowls. Feed all the dogs.
He alternated days with his brother Alan, and Mark was not allowed to go around terrorizing the neighborhood with me until his chores were done, so I volunteered to help so I could get him out on parole early. This was my apprenticeship phase of learning how to work with all of the cute pampered AKC (America Kennel Club) certified four-legged savages that you can imagine. I believe that you could have called my position, Kennel Technician Lackey I.
Mark taught me the ropes and I was a quick study. The three most important things were #1: Do not let a dog escape, and #2: Do not get the dogs wet while hosing out their dog run, and #3: DO NOT EVER turn your back on the dogs while inside or exiting the kennel or they will almost certainly bite you. I believe that #3 should have been #1 because it was unquestionably the most hazardous part of the job, but I wasn’t willing to go to Showtime Kennels management to file a grievance.
As it turned out, Showtime Kennels is where I learned to truly fear the small breed dogs like Maltese, Pekingese, Phalene, Pomeranian, Shih Tzu, and my least favorite, Yorkshire Terrier. These were neurotic, yappy, compact, savage little beasts, and even though I was helping Mark feed them their yummy horse meat soup with a generous scoop of kibble (in the exact proportions based on the size of the dog, of course), they barked, snarled, and gnashed their teeth at me more often than not. You’d think we’d be friends, but this was never the case: I was their eternal foe and perpetually on the menu.
Whenever rule #3 slipped my mind, sometimes the gnashing teeth found themselves embedded into my ankle or sometimes my lower calf if the little devil put in some extra effort and lunged a little bit. This was way back in the 70’s so there weren’t any emergency room visits or filing of personal injury lawsuits through the likes of the Larry H Parker law firm; it was simply a life lesson for volunteering in general. I’ll leave it at that. Anyway, a little swab of witch hazel and some gauze and a strip of duct tape over the bite wound, and I was good as new.
You might ask: But what about getting rabies? This was highly unlikely because most of these animals were AKC certified purebred breeding and show dogs, and they lived a life in the lap of luxury exclusively indoors, insulated from the outside world (much like a modern-day celebrity) so there was practically zero chance of ever getting rabies from them because these dogs were never, ever allowed to fraternize with the mutts or the squirrels or the cats or the rats in the neighborhood.
The usual feeding routine was that before we started, we’d blast Emerson Lake & Palmer’s Brain Salad Surgery on the old beater Hi-Fi system in the garage and smoke a little bit of weed to get primed up. It helped me relax and allay the fear of getting chomped on (again) by someone’s precious little ill-mannered and extremely unpredictable lapdog.
When feeding time came around, the dogs sensed it, and the anticipation was palpable as we filled the bowls and loaded them onto a cart to roll down the dog run. The dogs would start barking and banging against the chain-link gates of their kennels in an almost unbearable cacophony, and this is why we blasted ELP on the stereo.
Some dogs had a very rhythmic chain-link gate pounding routine that went like this:
They would stand on all fours on the concrete deck about a foot away from the gate, bark three times at the sky, lunge at the gate with their front paws to make the gate rattle, bark three more times through the fence, drop back to the deck, reposition, and repeat.
Some dogs would run around in a circle rapidly two or three times, lunge the gate and bark five times, rest, bark five more times, drop, rest, and repeat. I think the rest was so they could catch their breath because they got gassed out from the overly enthusiastic barking due to their tiny lungs.
Other dogs were much more obnoxious and would stand on their hind legs with their front paws against the chain-link gate and rattle the gate with the rhythm of their unrelenting barking. Think of this as a dog bark synchronized with the metallic rattle of a slightly loose chain-link gate. Charming.
One of my feeding hacks was to open the gate just wide enough for the food bowl to squeeze through—strategically placing the metal bowl between the gnashing teeth of a mean dog and my quivering hand—and then slide the metal bowl across the concrete deck with a flick of my wrist as you would toss a Frisbee. I was able to develop some impressive accuracy and get the bowl to stop exactly where I wanted it, which was at the back of the dog run just in front of the doghouse. This would also get the menacing little dog to chase the bowl down and put some distance between us. The grating sound of the metallic bowl sliding across the slightly abrasive concrete deck is something that I’ll never forget.
While the dogs ate, the din of the kennel dropped dramatically for about thirty-seconds, and the only sounds you could hear were the metal buckles of their dog collars banging against the metal food bowl, and the chomping and the crunching and the gulping of the food. It amazed me how quickly these little monsters could woof down their food. I’d bet a dozen of them could finish me off in five minutes—like furry little land piranhas.
I’ll also never forget the yelps and the remarkable blue streak of expletives flying out of my mouth whenever I forgot rule #3 and felt the sharp, immediate pain of small canine teeth embedding themselves into my flesh from behind…again. Over and over, I had to fight back the urge to punt the perpetually angry little dogs over the fence onto Chandler Blvd and into the unknown suburban landscape. That would have been mean and inhumane, right? Yeah, right.
I never counted how many times I was bitten, nor tracked the breed-to-bite ratio—although I’d guess Yorkie’s would rank #1—but it was definitely more than enough to last several lifetimes.
If nothing else, being a volunteer Kennel Technician Lackey taught me one thing: Little dogs simply cannot ever be trusted.
Now you’ll understand why I flinch and break into a cold sweat whenever a small dog starts barking.
BANG-BANG-BANG! – down came the gavel with an overly enthusiastic force during the last legislative session of the year. “H. R. 11,776 2050, the TAIL (Taxing Animal’s Innate Look) Tax has passed with a supermajority vote; this session is adjourned.” And just like that, another expensive, intrusive new tax was imposed upon the people virtually out of thin air, and the formerly considered untouchable direct taxation upon people’s pets was quickly – even eagerly – signed into law by the president. These legislators have zero restraint and are perpetually scheming for new taxes needed to continue funding the ever-expanding Government Industrial Complex, which, by 2050, knows no boundaries. And so, the giant sucking maw of government greed, power, and corruption continued unabated.
As the dissenting nay voters stormed out of the chamber, the minority leader by the name of O’Keefe verbally warned his colleagues, “The citizens of this country will not tolerate this egregious, pernicious, and arbitrary tax on their beloved pets. We should be voting to repeal taxes like this instead of creating new ones! This TAIL tax will be the final straw, and the people will not tolerate it – mark my words!”
The TAIL tax law went into effect on January 1, 2051, and was retroactive for the 2050 tax year.
Unfortunately, this new TAIL tax did not really surprise anyone, after all, by 2049 everything else had already been levied a tax. People were now paying taxes on everything consumable (the list of which is too long and tedious to put down here, but believe me when I say everything), plus other ridiculous taxes like a personal carbon footprint tax as assessed by how much CO2 gas a person emits while breathing, how much rainwater and sunlight falls on their property, how many miles they drive, a per square toilet paper tax (that always spikes during cold and flu season), a keyboard keystroke tax (which always spikes during a breaking news story), a per-email tax, social media account taxes, a bodyweight tax (which is always up and down), a carbohydrate tax, condom tax, per brick tax, phone minute use tax, ice cube tax, firewood tax, a plant and garden tax, grass clipping tax, yard trimming tax, a per tooth tax (rumored to have triggered a massive spike in tooth extractions), fingernail and toenail trimmings taxes, earwax tax, haircut tax, dog poop tax, cat poop tax, human poop tax, toilet tax, fork, spoon, and knife taxes, a sleep tax, a snore tax, flatulence tax (which always spikes on Cinco de Mayo), a per-page book tax, a sporting goods tax, a facial hair tax (both men and women – because equality!) the full list of absurd taxes just goes on and on – let your imagination run wild and you’ll be right! The tax rate was already approaching 80% and rising, mostly to pay for the ever-expanding $100 trillion-dollar federal debt.
In essence, the politicians were perpetually scheming and engaging in financially punishing people simply for being human in order to fund the out-of-control government spending. Absolutely nothing was sacred anymore (not that anything ever actually was sacred to begin with, in the literal term anyway). The government even forced people to install cameras and toilet seat sensors and all manner of environmental sensors in and around their homes and yards and in their cars and trucks to track all of this stuff, all at the taxpayers’ expense, of course.
Naturally, many of the tax revenue estimates made by the bureaucracy in Washington DC were entirely wrong, hence the ongoing assault on the taxpayer for more and more of their money, after all, someone has to pay for all of the “free” stuff doled out by the government. Sadly, the people were complicit; they had capitulated because they would rather stay out of a dark, dank federal prison and enjoy what little liberty and freedom and money that they had left on the outside than to rebel against it and end up on the inside of one. All of the politicians knew this, and they used it to their maximum advantage.
Filing the tax returns for all of these new taxes not only costs far more money, it takes four times as much time – proving once again that the government doesn’t care about using up your time as they see fit – but also the punitive punishment administered by the government for getting it wrong will directly result in the seizing of all assets plus jail time, so people are always in fear of an audit. Nowadays, there are more heart attacks during tax season than there are during daylight savings time changes in the spring and the fall, the previous recordholders. “Death by a thousand taxes,” was no longer just a metaphor.
When Mark Armstrong heard the news about this new TAIL tax, he dropped his cup of coffee onto the floor, which made all of his half-dozen or so rescue dogs and cats temporarily scatter from the kitchen where he was standing. As Mark was cleaning up the mess, his pets slowly started returning to the kitchen to see what was going on, and his favorite Pomeranian, Zea, started licking up the whiskey-tinged coffee from the floor. “Don’t’ worry guys,” Mark said to his beloved pets, “I’ll figure out a way to come up with the extra TAIL Tax money.”
Then he stood up and looked out of the kitchen window across the expanse of his hilly, tree studded, hundred-acre property located somewhere east of Podunk where he had other rescue dogs and cats housed in his barn and outbuildings all living very comfortable lives. There were about twenty-five dogs and cats in all. This new TAIL Tax was going to cost him thousands of extra dollars per year – money that he simply didn’t have – which would ultimately bankrupt him. Unfortunately, Mark was a retiree on a pension that he was barely scraping by on, and any new expense – especially involuntary ones imposed by the government – were an absolute threat to his livelihood. He bristled at the thought of another new, unfair, idiotic tax.
Mark also felt deeply in his heart that the government had gone too far this time, and he simply was not going to take it sitting down – he was not going to go along with this death by ten-thousand taxes madness imposed upon the people by the faceless, heartless, mindless bureaucrats in DC. In fact, an intense feeling of rebellion began to swell up in him; one that he could not suppress – he determined at that moment that the time for a tax war had come. But before engaging in a battle with the federal government Leviathan, he wisely decided to check into the language of the new law so that he could better develop some rules for engagement.
Notably, “A $50 per inch annual TAIL tax will be assessed on any cat or dog living within the household, the length of which shall be measured from the anus to the tip of the tail, including the fur, rounding up to the next one-quarter of an inch. All farm animals will be excluded.” He did some quick math in his head; this new TAIL tax was going to cost him approximately $30K per year, and there was no way he could pay it. Then he had a dark thought cross his mind that maybe this law was not really about a new tax, rather, it was a law designed to allow for more civil asset forfeitures because people won’t be able to pay their tax bills, giving the government more ownership and control over private property. This thought sent a chill down his spine, and he was not going to give up his ranch without a fight, even if it killed him.
From reading the entire text of the new law, Mark ascertained the following items which he could use in his TAIL Tax war:
The government was clearly attempting to also get a headcount of the dogs and cats that were living amongst the population, most likely for another tax scheme. Mark reasoned to himself, “And this is why I never fill out the census: The government will use the information provided against me.”
The term(s) of “within the household,” were not clarified, so there was a gray area for an indoor/outdoor pet, like a cat, for example, and whether there was an exemption for a pet that spent more time outdoors than indoors.
Specific language for dogs and cats not living “within the household” was missing from the law entirely, either by design or possibly by mistake, leaving room for interpretation.
There was no language included in the text of the law preventing tail docking or caudectomy, vis-à-vis, removal of the tail, and although this would be an extreme tax avoidance measure, certainly, some people would do it.
There was also some darker text within the law that enraged Mark: “Any citizen that underreports the headcount of the pets living within the household will be fined $50,000 and sentenced to a mandatory minimum of 6–months in jail, and the pets intentionally excluded from the tax return will be taken into custody and a fine of $100 per day will be assessed. At 90-days, if the fine is not paid in full, the animal in question will be destroyed. Financing options are available.”
“Those greedy, immoral, power-hungry bastards! ‘Pay us, or the dog gets it?’ It is now painfully obvious that the government will never stop their assault on the taxpayers unless we force them to stop! Guys: We must be the tip of the spear!” Mark exclaimed to his audience of house pets.
Mark sent a letter to his congressman, eloquently explaining his financial situation and how the TAIL tax was going to bankrupt him. There was no reply.
Mark sent a letter to the President, eloquently explaining his financial situation and how the TAIL tax was going to force him to sell his property. There was no reply.
Mark emailed the local news station, eloquently explaining the financial implications and how the TAIL tax was going to bankrupt many people. There was no reply.
Fuming over being ignored by the politicians and the media and facing financial ruin, Mark decided to make a TikTok video using clips of his rescue animals and house pets and explaining the TAIL tax law and how it allowed for the government to seize and destroy peoples pets and levy heavy fines against them, and it must be stopped by any means. This, fortunately, got the people’s attention. On day 1, he got a hundred views. By day 3, there were 10,000 views. By the end of the week, the video had reached 1,000,000 views and followers. The word was getting out. Zea was the new darling of the Internet. The politicians were getting flooded with phone calls, letters, and emails demanding them to repeal the TAIL tax. They did not budge.
In one protest, a few dozen people dumped a truckload of fake animal tails in front of the White House while holding up a banner that said, “NO TAIL TAX!” The crude, ineloquent message hinted that the people would cut off their pets tails in rebellion to avoid the new tax. This only got national news coverage after the capitol police arrived in force in full riot gear and started bashing the heads of the peaceful protesters.
The TikTok video also got the unwanted attention of someone in power in DC who directed the IRS to audit the last 6-years of Mark’s tax returns and to scrutinize them, “Microscopically.” This was the sort of audit that everyone feared. The kind of audit that nobody could survive with the relentless requests for all manner of obscure receipts, bank records, cleared checks, savings and checking account activity, cryptocurrency accounts and activity, stock trading accounts and activity, non-profit donation receipts, gifts, inheritances, lottery winnings, medical expenses, home improvement expenses, ad infinitum. I was clear that Mark was being targeted by the government, and there was no doubt that they would surely find something. They always do.
Early one morning, just before dawn, the rescue dogs in the barn and outbuildings began barking fiercely, waking Mark up. He got out of bed, grabbed his 12-gauge pump shotgun, which, living on a ranch with bears in the vicinity, was per the usual, walked out into the living room, and peered out of the big front window. He did not notice anything unusual. On his way to the kitchen from the living room to make some coffee, he heard a strange buzzing sound coming from the outside of the house near the back door where the electrical panel was located. He thought there might be an electrical problem, so he opened the back door to go outside and check it out – and there he was met with a large, matte black drone hovering at eye-level, just beyond the wraparound porch, which not only startled him, but it also triggered a split-second defensive response that resulted in the immediate disassembly of said large, matte black drone via a 12-gauge 00 shotgun blast from the hip. After years of collecting and shooting firearms, Mark was an expert marksman and new a few trick shots.
Mark walked over to the wreckage to investigate. There, on what remained of the matte black carbon fiber fuselage that housed the NiCad batteries, hard drive, HD camera, and circuit boards, was the unmistakable logo of the FBI. He took a video clip of it with his phone. At that precise moment, Mark knew that it was going to be a very long day. With the phone video camera still rolling and the sun rising, he discharged a point-blank 00 shotgun blast into the heart of the electronics. Blown to smithereens was an understatement. He looked into his camera, shook his head, stopped the video, and went back inside the house to finish making his coffee and also to prepare for the imminent battle. He reviewed surveillance video from around the ranch and saw that there were a half-dozen black SUV’s plus an armored personnel vehicle at the front gate. “They must have found something really bad in my tax returns,” he said to Zea. He called a lawyer friend.
“Well, Mark, you certainly have them on failing to provide due process, but they are definitely not going to back down now. They will label you as an unpatriotic tax evader and claim that you started the hostilities, destroyed government property, falsified your tax returns, and they will find a way to escalate until you leave the house feet-first in a body bag. Remember what happed in Waco; your house may ‘accidentally’ catch on fire. Unfortunately, today may be your last one. I advise that you take to your TikTok followers and tell the story as it unfolds. I’ll call the media.”
The commanding FBI agent named Johnson who was watching the live HD video feed from the drone camera as it got blasted out of the sky was not amused. “Do you not understand what the meaning of ‘stealth’ is!” he snapped at the drone pilot, who quickly replied, “You saw what happened – that guy’s reflexes were unbelievable – I had zero time to respond!” “Well, now that the stealth surveillance tactic has been compromised, we’ll have to give Mr. Armstrong a courtesy call and allow him to surrender peacefully,” said Johnson to his colleagues.
Mark’s phone rang with “This is the FBI” displayed as the caller ID without a phone number. He started his live TikTok app and answered the phone in hands-free mode. “Hello FBI, this is Mark Armstrong, I’ve been expecting your call. Fair warning: you are being streamed live in front of a million plus TikTok followers.” There was an awkward moment of silence, and Mark thought that he heard a few muffled expletives before agent Johnson responded, in a calm voice, “Mr. Armstrong, it appears that we may have started off on the wrong foot this morning. You see, you’ve been indicted for tax evasion, and we have a federal warrant for your arrest, and we were simply using the drone to determine if it was safe to send up some agents to take you into custody. But now that you shot it down, not only have you committed another serious federal crime you have also escalated the situation with your hostility.” “Hostility? I’m no threat to anyone, Agent Johnson, and you could have just used the intercom button at the gate – I would have let you in. But now I am in fear for my life after seeing that drone spying on me.” “Mr. Armstrong, are you saying that you are not going to surrender to the FBI?” “Surrender to some trumped up charges brought on by some greedy, bloated, ham-fisted politicians in Washington because I informed the public about the ugly truth of the money grabbing TAIL tax? This is absolute tyranny and likely a death warrant based on the FBI’s infamous history of bungling these sorts of things. I’ll need to consider my options, Agent Johnson.” and with that, Mark hung up the phone. The TikTok live stream responses were blowing up.
Mark addressed his TikTok followers, “Friends; I really don’t want to die today, but the FBI is probably going to raid my house at some point and ‘accidentally’ kill me, so I’m going to leave this live stream on, and you can watch how the events unfold in real time.” He plugged his phone into the charger, set his phone on a stand, put the stand on a table, and aimed the camera with the front window and front door of the house in the field of view. That’s when the power went out. Mark got back in front of his phone and told his audience that the FBI had just cut his power, but he had several fully charged battery banks for his phone to keep the live stream going.
Although Mark was on high alert and flinching at every sound he heard outside of the house, the rest of the day was uneventful, perhaps indicating that the feds were planning for something after nightfall.
Sure enough, just after sunset, the dogs outside started barking again. Mark looked out of the front window to see a small tactical robot rolling up the driveway in the twilight. He grabbed his phone and showed his live stream audience what was happening – which had grown to over 3-million viewers – and said, “Looks like they sent up a robot TAIL tax collector! I don’t know what is going to happen next, but please pray for me and my pets!” And at that very moment, his phone displayed, “Lost Internet Connectivity.” Now the FBI was blocking his 5G signal. Mark found himself completely cut off from the grid. He sipped his cold, whiskey laden coffee in the dark.
As the dogs continued barking excitedly in the darkness, and as Mark continued to observe the tactical robot closing in on his front porch (he had already assumed that it had some sort of fatal explosive or incendiary payload, or other armament intended to kill him), suddenly, from the back of the house, there were headlights shining in through the back door window. Mark assumed that it was the FBI driving in with the armored personnel carrier, coming in from the old, mostly unused back gate that was overgrown with black walnut trees and was only accessible by an old unmapped dirt fire road that ran along the back of the property.
He picked up Zea, who was also barking, and went to the back door window to see what was happening, halfway expecting to take a bullet to the head. That’s when he saw the endless stream of cars and news vans and pickup trucks rolling in with huge American and Gadsden flags abundantly displayed. Then he heard the horns honking. Then he saw droves of people walking in with flashlights and their dogs. The cars and trucks and people began surrounding his house. Someone yelled out from a bullhorn, “MARK ARMSTRONG – YOUR CAVALRY IS HERE!”
In that moment, FBI Agent Johnson realized that he missed seeing the back gate of the property during his earlier recon using satellite images, and this error might cost him his job. He also couldn’t believe what he was witnessing through the HD camera on the tactical robot: The people surrounded it and started chanting, “USA-USA-USA!” while pumping their fists in the air. Johnson lamented to his team, “Dammit! We’re done, boys. Pack it up!” And with that order, the tactical robot operator began backing it down the driveway, slowly, all the while the growing crowd of people escorted it to the gate.
The lights on the property suddenly came back on. Mark’s phone rang with the same, “This is the FBI” caller ID with no phone number. “Armstrong; this is Agent Johnson. It appears that you have a lot of friends supporting you. We’re going to disengage and leave now, and best of luck to you.” Mark replied, “Agent Johnson, why don’t you come up to the house for a dram of whiskey, you know, as a peace offering?” “Thanks, Mark, but I’m on duty. Besides, I don’t like big, potentially hostile, anti-law enforcement crowds. By the way, I was on your side the entire time, but I have orders to follow.” And with that, Agent Johnson ended the call, and the convoy of FBI vehicles drove off into the inky black night.
It became known as the “Wag-the-Tax Revolution.” The media reports said that 5,000 people came to stand with Mark. The FBI said that it was only 500. There was a subsequent anti TAIL tax march on Washington where it was estimated that 5-million people showed up with their beloved, well behaved pets. Mark and Zea became folk heroes and made the usual media appearances. Mark wrote a bestselling book about it. Zea became a well-paid spokesdog for a national dogfood brand.
The pushback against the TAIL tax was so intense across the nation, that every single legislator who voted for it got voted out of office. Thousands of arcane tax laws and anti-liberty and anti-freedom laws were repealed. The size and scope and power and expense of the government was reduced to a point where nobody really noticed it anymore, as it should have been all along.
The people flourished with the additional freedom and liberty, and with the heavy tax burden lifted off of their backs, they had more money in their pockets to put to use for their own personal version of the pursuit of happiness.
msnarky 