Like any good communist, I want to share something with my community. In this case, it’s the community of the internet. Like any good dog, the only thing I have to share is dog food. There is a unique feature in my town which is not advertised in any of the tourist brochures, and it’s certainly not mentioned by brave real estate agents spraying popcorn scented air freshener in every room of the overpriced houses they’ve got to sell here. That feature is a Purina dog food factory, and from it bursts forth a miasma of kibble and real steak flavor the likes of which have never been seen or smelled anywhere else on Earth. I’ve walked through clouds of liver and chicken and come through it a different, damaged person.
It’s a weird experience, stepping outside into a heavy atmosphere of dog food. I always feel like I should be able to see the scent infecting the air. I imagine the factory as the center of an evil cloud of the putrid stuff. It has turned my home functionally into Mordor with fewer volcanoes and sword-crime. There would also be many, many dogs.
Sometimes, when I ride my bike and the factory is at its peak output, I imagine I’m powering through a colossal bowl of wet dog food because only when it becomes a real, tangible challenge can I feel like there is even a possibility of defeating this beacon of evil and awful scents. I’ve fantasized about riding up the base of the great Purina Tower–and yes, they’ve got a tower in case there was any chance of mistaking them for a business and not a collection of dog super villains. Once I’m at the entrance, which I imagine would be a massive floppy doggy door, I’d charge through, rolled up newspaper in hand. It would be me and my trusty paper against a sea of dogs possessed by the Smell and the promise of food from the tower’s wicked overlord. I would swat and scold and rub noses until every dog is freed from the influence of the tower, and then it would be on to the tower’s keeper which would be a cat because only cats would go to such lengths to control dogs.
Maybe I spend too much time thinking about the fantastical villainy of a company that is, at best, relatively uninteresting. My reason for fantasizing about doing battle with possessed dogs and wicked cats, but I challenge anyone confronted with the suffocating scent of doggy chow not to dream of a way to battle it. This Purina plant is my dragon, the scaled and fire breathing idol of capitalist abuse, and I want to slay it and conquer this exploitation of my once-delicious mountain air.
I’m not a revolutionary. I would be a terrible rebel leader considering how bad I am at inspiring people and how few buns I have in my hair. I don’t want to start trouble. However, if I had the chance to raise an army of citizens tired of sniffing at the rear end of this grand dog, then I might. If I could rally a force of citizens exhausted by the constant flight from airtight store to airtight store, tired by their unrelenting vigilance in their cars for the smell will attack if even a single air conditioning vent is open. If I could recruit from the downtrodden masses of my home, a contingent of righteously enraged people who spend more on shampoo to purge the smell from their kibble-saturated hair. If I could do all that, then I would. But I can’t, so I’ll continue smelling of dog food and squinting at the liver-scented air even though there is nothing marring its clarity. The foul work of Purina is transparent. I will not fight back, but gosh it would be fun to see that horrible tower shut down forever.
And this is why, for anyone who ever meets me, I might smell like dog food.
Non-Euclidean Sofa 
That’s pretty crazy! I’d want to fight for my mountain air if I lost it. The plant must move!
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I’ve dreamed of seeing that awful place burn. Sometimes it doesn’t smell though. Those are the good hours when I can almost forget I’m living in a dog food bowl
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That sounds like the pits–even worse than the guano-drenched rocks of Laguna Beach. I’m a culture snob. I don’t mind the one-percenters having to smell bird droppings, but when the righteous middle class has to smell dog chow…well, sign me up for the storm.
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Back when I was a tiny child and my family was weirdly well off, I lived near Laguna, and I remember the bird droppings almost fondly. That is not how I’ll ever think of the dog food now that I’m poor and stuck with it
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I apologize for being snarky. I must remember to always be kind.
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No apologies are necessary! Especially not for well-timed snark
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The Dog Food Factory Miasma will forever haunt my nightmares and waking hours, alike…
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Me too
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Hooked me right in, plus i could “almost” smell it.
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I’m glad you couldn’t quite smell it. Nobody should
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Your version of what’s inside the dog food plant sounds like a good idea for a side scrolling video game. You go in to free the dogs by “teaching” them to be “good” dogs and by the end you find out a cat is making all the dogs “bad” with it’s cat nip like dog food.
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I like that idea. I could just see the little bit-figures battling their way through adorably sinister levels of the factory. I bet the cat would have a good villain laugh
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I have a Parina dog show plant near me to
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Yikes wordpress locked up on me and didn’t let me finish my thought and correct my dictation. That is Purina factory. Was just going to say don’t make friends with anybody that works there. They will want to tell you all about making dog food. You won’t want to Even have a dog after you hear about the process! You won’t know what to feed your Poochie. I actually cook my dogs about half their food from scratch…
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I’ve imagined it, and I think I’m going to avoid anything and anyone to do with that place. There are human dog food testers who have to eat the stuff, and I just can’t imagine meeting them at a party and not wanting to toss myself off a bridge after hearing about their work
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You’re making that up aren’t you? Human dog food testers? I don’t know when to take you seriously or not… Gosh I hope you’re making that up 🤢
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Unfortunately, it’s entirely true. Can you imagine their breath after a long day at work?
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Yikes they obviously do not tell these tasters what goes into the food or they would not taste!
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Maybe they spit it out like wine tasters? I need to believe that they don’t actually eat it
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There are only a few places where I have smelled the industry of a city. Yours sounds horrible. Cincinnati smells like laundry detergent (Proctor & Gamble) and Portland, Maine smells like baked beans (B&M) I’ll take either over the smell of Purina dog chow. Please forgive me for having two Great Danes. Please thank me for never feeding them Purina. 🙂
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You’re doing your own little part to keep that awful factory from finding a reason to produce more, and that’s all that counts. Beans sounds pleasant in comparison
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👍🏻
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