Today I read the worst story.
Well. The story was fine. It's just that ... everyone in it was awful? It's a story about people leasing—LEASING—dogs.
Buying a dog is bad enough—shelters are literally giving them away for free all over the country—but in some cases I get it. You need one that's hypoallergenic or whatever. (You can get one of those from a shelter too, it just often takes more time. But whatever, there are probably reasons.) But at least then you're buying it. To own forever. You're not, like, trying the dog out and trading it in for a new model like a sports car.
I mean. For instance:
Dawn ... soon decided Tucker was too rambunctious for her family’s home. She called the pet store and threatened to leave the pup tied up outside the store, then decided on what she thought a more humane path. She sold the dog to a local trainer for $500, stopped making payments on the lease, and spent 18 months griping in online reviews and emails.
I would not object to this person being catapulted into the sun.
Or, say, this person:
One cat lover described buying a Bengal kitten from a breeder in Jacksonville, Florida, at a sticker price of $1,700—then learning they were on the hook for 32 monthly payments of $129, or about $4,100. "They explained to me that not only was this not a loan but a lease in which I would either have to continue making these payments or return the animal," the customer wrote in a November 2015 complaint. "Also this cat is ruining my credit score."
Anyone who pays that much for a cat or doesn't understand what they're signing up for or complains about their pet ruining their credit score should be drawn and quartered and then catapulted into the sun.
Smith, 40, has used leases from Bristlecone for two dogs, both Morkies—a Maltese-Yorkie hybrid. She bought the first dog, Julius, on a whim after walking into a local pet store without a credit card. "It was like, I didn’t want to leave without him," she said. After Julius was killed in a traffic accident, Smith worked with Bristlecone to craft a lease for a new dog, which she named Monsieur Fluffington ("the smaller the dog, the longer the name"). "I can’t say enough good things about Wags," she said.
Monsieur Fluffington. That's the sort of name that should get you an 18-year stretch in a Siberian gulag where you lose three toes to frostbite.
In other words, Bristlecone’s dog leases might not be replacing more expensive credit. They may just offer a new way for subprime borrowers to buy things they can’t afford.
"We’re all for going to the shelter and adopting a dog," Wunderlich answers. "But if a person wants a Chiweenie, they’re not going to go to a shelter and find a Chiweenie."
I'm all for separating fools from their money, as this fine gentleman seems to have done, but I'm also all for burying awful and gauche morons in a sarcophagus 100 feet under the earth and filling that sarcophagus with flesh-eating beetles and then lighting that sarcophagus on fire so, you know, I'm all for a lot of things, don't judge me.
I hate everything.