The Slice: Life can’t always be all warm and fuzzy

I keep thinking about a story that appeared in the S-R a couple of Saturdays ago.

Accompanied by several fine photos, it was about a tabby cat that greets children getting off the bus outside a Spokane grade school. It should have been on the front page.

In any event, it left me with this thought: Is there just no end to how easy kids have it today?

Look, I rode the bus for a couple of years in junior high. It was no picnic. And let me tell you, back in my day there was no communal feline to ease our transition to school.

No sir. We were supposed to get our butts into class and then sit down and shut up. If we didn’t like it, well, there was no furry counselor there to listen to us whine.

Did we have a friendly cat to pat on the head before going in and facing algebra or lockers that refused to open? We did not.

Did we have a purring animal inviting tummy rubs take our minds off mean girls or blades o’ doom in shop class? We did not.

Now don’t get me wrong. I think the world of today’s children. It’s just that I worry.

Are we letting them get soft?

Does it do these kids a disservice to hide from them the one immutable fact of life?

There isn’t always a kitty. Sometimes you just have to tough it out.

Now I don’t begrudge those kids getting to interact with a four-legged greeter. I’m pleased for them. And I happen to know that interacting with a cat can make the day brighter.

It’s just that these youngsters need to realize that life probably won’t be like that when they grow up.

Let’s say one of them is getting grilled about missing an impossible sales quota. Is he or she going to be able to say “I don’t like where this is going … I want a kitty”?

Not likely. But perhaps things will be different by the time those bus kids are adults. Maybe, in the future, there always will be a therapy animal available.

Just in case, though, I hope those grade-schoolers don’t take their greeter cat for granted.

Today’s Slice question: How would Spokane Valley be different today if the push years ago to name the city “Chief Joseph” had succeeded?