# For cruelty to gramps and cat, I sentence you to hell! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 7, 2006, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-cruelty-to-gramps-and-cat-i-sentence-you-to-hell/343472 "2006-02-07T23:54:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-cruelty-to-gramps-and-cat-i-sentence-you-to-hell/343472/101 "2006-02-10T03:34:19Z")
> [@Rubystreak](#): > > She said they were jerks Can you ask her in what way? Did she form this opinion before or after she met gramps? > [@](#): > > and the old man should disinherit them. The director’s opinion, not the family’s, right? I need clarification on that. > [@](#): > > You have a lot of questions that I don’t have answers to b/c I didn’t interrogate the director about this. I will ask for more info tomorrow when I go in for my shift, assuming I even see her. Ask if you can, but don’t get yourself dismissed on my account. Don’t pepper her with questions until you get fired, OK? And yes, I’d rather have you snib on a message board rather than take legal action against people you’ve never met. It’s just that when you post to this board, you may well expect to be called on what you post. Understand a few more things: I love animals, cats especially (and I’m a straight male!), and if the truth is remotely as you claim it to be, then The Kids is assholes straight out from Hell. We’re not in disagreement on this. But you and I both know that The Truth is not always as it appears to be. Take my GF’s mother’s story as an example. I’m a great believer in that people, for the most part, do not act out of malice, but rather behave badly because of miscommunication, hardship, or different values. People generally do what they think is best, even though sometimes they’re horribly wrong. What Gramps and Kitty went through was no doubt painful, but I’d estimate (until further illumination) that the kids were doing the best they knew how, however misguided. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-cruelty-to-gramps-and-cat-i-sentence-you-to-hell/343472/102 "2006-02-10T03:37:57Z")
> [@Jaade](#): > > My great-grandfather had 3 heart attacks in a single day. Wow. I thought I won the Suckiest Story Award with my GF’s five heart attacks in two months story, but this beats it hands down. Ever been turned down by four potential lovers in a single day? ---
**Author:** ![Veronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Veronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Veronica)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-cruelty-to-gramps-and-cat-i-sentence-you-to-hell/343472/103 "2006-02-10T12:46:04Z")
If they turned you down, they really weren’t potential lovers. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-cruelty-to-gramps-and-cat-i-sentence-you-to-hell/343472/104 "2006-02-10T13:05:45Z")
[QUOTE=tdn] Can you ask her in what way? Did she form this opinion before or after she met gramps? The director’s opinion, not the family’s, right? I need clarification on that.[/quot] The director thought the old man should disinherit the kids. I’m not sure when she formed the opinion. I didn’t really get into it with her. > [@](#): > > Ask if you can, but don’t get yourself dismissed on my account. Don’t pepper her with questions until you get fired, OK? First of all, I’m a volunteer, so they can’t “fire” me. Second, I just adopted a very needy long-term resident of the shelter when no one else wanted her, so she thinks I’m aces. Third, she’s kind of hard to get to, being that she’s always going back and forth between the intake building and the shelter. I will ask as much as I can. > [@](#): > > And yes, I’d rather have you snib on a message board rather than take legal action against people you’ve never met. It’s just that when you post to this board, you may well expect to be called on what you post. How would I take legal action anyway? I have no power over this situation and no real stake in it except in working with the cat. I just had to blow off steam, but next time I’ll just write it in my diary. I don’t need to be insulted and called names when I’m only talking here. > [@](#): > > Understand a few more things: I love animals, cats especially (and I’m a straight male!), and if the truth is remotely as you claim it to be, then The Kids is assholes straight out from Hell. We’re not in disagreement on this. But you and I both know that The Truth is not always as it appears to be. Take my GF’s mother’s story as an example. You never really told me the GF’s mother’s story, because I was too narrowminded to understand it, so I have no opinion about what your GF did or did not do. I do have an opinion about Moses’ situation because I have more information. > [@](#): > > I’m a great believer in that people, for the most part, do not act out of malice, but rather behave badly because of miscommunication, hardship, or different values. I think people behave badly quite often because they take the path of least resistance. A lot of people cop out and do the easy thing rather than the best thing. That’s what I suspect happened here. > [@](#): > > People generally do what they think is best, even though sometimes they’re horribly wrong. What Gramps and Kitty went through was no doubt painful, but I’d estimate (until further illumination) that the kids were doing the best they knew how, however misguided. I do not agree with your philosophy of human motivations. I don’t think people are just naturally inclined to do what’s best. They are inclined to do what is best for THEMSELVES, not necessarily others. But we will have to agree to disagree on this one, because you are unlikely to convince me that people are basically good at heart. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-cruelty-to-gramps-and-cat-i-sentence-you-to-hell/343472/105 "2006-02-10T16:17:30Z")
Ever the optimist I am going to try again. Please remember I am not trying to disuade you from your belief, only offer a different view. This elderly man, who’s grown children may live many miles distant from him, has had a stroke and thrown a family into crisis. The breadth and depth of that crisis cannot possibly be known to you. There could be gut wrenching choices, sleep deprivation, brutal family conflict coupled with painful emotional cascades, tangled legal issues, crippling expenses and unbearable timetables. Until you’ve walked in these shoes you’d be wise to withhold judgement on where exactly pets should get prioritized. Were they cranky and irritable, unwilling to share details of the life circumstances that brought them to where they are? I think I could find it in my heart to cut them some slack, not knowing the circumstances that may well have foced them to this choice. I’d like to think I could forgive them for being miserable, what with this possibly being one of the worst days of their lives and all. Now I want to speak to you of strokes. I care for someone who suffered a stroke over five years ago, that left her entirely bedridden. Were you to visit you would leave quite certain that she is entirely on top of it all. You’d be wrong. Not a week goes by that she doesn’t ask me to help her get up out of bed. It’s been over five years. She can’t keep this one detail in her head because it’s so very traumatic for her to accept. 95% of the time she is all there. Sometimes though, she thinks her dead husband was here to see her, that her son is still a boy etc. Often she looks forward all week to her out of town daughter coming to visit. They visit for 4 hrs, she is sitting up chatting and on the ball the whole time. Once the visit ends she drifts off for her nap, when she wakes she will be upset that she missed her visit, and I will reassure her she did not. Again, her head won’t hold it because it was a big event for her. Nursing homes are filled with people convinced they were robbed and left by their children against their will. You will discover that such is not the case though, many of these grown children explained to the parents and sought and received their consent for the life choices that were made. But it’s emotional and devastating and for stroke survivors those are often the things that fly away or get bent the most. So I would say to you, don’t be so sure they didn’t get the fellows consent to do what they did, or that they didn’t have a good bye session for him and Moses, all of which has since evaporated from his mind. You can, of course, discount all I’ve said, with another simplistic, ‘I find it hard to believe…’ but I would remind you that just because you find it hard to believe, or you would never, or your father would never, is not really cause to judge someone else. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-cruelty-to-gramps-and-cat-i-sentence-you-to-hell/343472/106 "2006-02-10T16:50:59Z")
> [@Rubystreak](#): > > You never really told me the GF’s mother’s story, because I was too narrowminded to understand it, so I have no opinion about what your GF did or did not do. Actually I did, back in post #85. ---
**Author:** ![Slacker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-cruelty-to-gramps-and-cat-i-sentence-you-to-hell/343472/107 "2006-02-10T18:11:48Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Ever the optimist I am going to try again. I’m an optimist too, for the most part. But I know when someone is cramming their fingers in their ears and singing “LA LA LA CAN’T HEAR YOU” it’s time to give up and wander away. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-cruelty-to-gramps-and-cat-i-sentence-you-to-hell/343472/108 "2006-02-10T18:30:28Z")
> [@Slacker](#): > > I’m an optimist too, for the most part. But I know when someone is cramming their fingers in their ears and singing “LA LA LA CAN’T HEAR YOU” it’s time to give up and wander away. Yep, that’s what I’m doing, so why don’t you just wander away now? Thanks. I know I will be doing that. I’m unsubscribing to this thread now so I can go bury my head in the sand, heartless monster I am for being so unable to listen to the reason of people who choose to insult me. I’ll be doing my volunteer work today, judging people and wreaking havoc. Anyone who wants an update on the cat can contact me. I won’t be posting anything more on this thread because everything I say is turned against me. So, basically, fuck off. LALALALALALALA. ---
**Author:** ![Slacker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2006, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-cruelty-to-gramps-and-cat-i-sentence-you-to-hell/343472/109 "2006-02-10T18:49:44Z")
Whoops I broke the thread. :eek: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-cruelty-to-gramps-and-cat-i-sentence-you-to-hell/343472.md?page=5)