Rescuing Strays

I am a firm believer in rescuing dogs from the shelter. My pet, Lady, was rescued from the animal shelter on Linden Boulevard. She was a five something (year old) bundle of fur who would have probably been euthanized had we not rescued her. She is smart, loving and very well behaved. I couldn't have asked for a better pet and she only cost us $40.00.

The recent eruptions of a volcano in Iceland had left thousands of people stranded in the airports. Watching the news, a young scottish lass was interviewed. She had only six dollars left and no place to go. Mayor Bloomberg showed his generosity to people like her by informing them that he had negotiated with Manhattan hotels to cut 15% off their rack rates. The stranded can now rent a hotel room in Manhattan for $240.00 a night instead of $300.00! A generous offer.

I had an epifany! I said to my lovely wife, "Wife! lets go to the airport and rescue a stranded tourist". Ilana said that this was a great idea but first we must clean the house. I retorted, that the beauty of rescuing a stranded tourist is that we can make them clean the house and cook for us in lieu of paying boarding fees.

We went to Kennedy airport and asked the information desk where we could rescue a tourist. The agent gaped at us with a dumfounded look and said he didn't know. We repeated this query several times and people stared at us as if we were from Mars. I went around asking people if they needed to be rescued. Finally an old man missing teeth, in shabby clothes and reeking of alcohol said "I wanna be reshcued!". I asked him what country he was from and he said "I don live in the cunry, I live in the city". I told him that he was not the kind of stray I am looking for, gave him my empty soda bottle and moved on.

I was hoping to find the Swedish Hot Tropic Bikini team stranded but, search high and low, I could not find them. An English woman did come up to us and said she and her children needed a place to stay, but English food tends to be boring and I would rather have a family from France, Italy, Spain or Greece where the cuisine is more appealing to me. I told the woman that it wouldn't work out and left.

It occurred to us that we don't really know what kind of person we would be inviting to our home. For all we know the person could be a serial killer or worse, an insurance salesman. (I would have said lawyer, but I have several lawyers in the family and would not want to offend them).

I think that this whole process could have been done better. I will make some suggestions to the Port Authority for the future and until then I am looking forward to the next tragedy.