"A dog is a man's best friend." That common saying may contain some truth, but dogs are not the only animal friend whose companionship people enjoy. For many people, a cat is their best friend. Despite what dog lovers may believe, cats make excellent housepets.
In the first place, people enjoy the companionship of cats. Many cats are affectionate. They will snuggle up and ask to be petted, or scratched under the chin. Who can resist a purring cat? If they're not feeling affectionate, cats are generally quite playful. They love to chase balls and feathers, or just about anything dangling from a string. They especially enjoy playing when their owners are participating in the game. Contrary to popular opinion, cats can be trained. Using rewards and punishments, just like with a dog, a cat can be trained to avoid unwanted behavior or perform tricks. Cats will even fetch!
In the second place, cats are civilized members of the household. Unlike dogs, cats do not bark or make other loud noises. Most cats don't even meow very often. They generally lead a quiet existence. Cats also don't often have "accidents." Mother cats train their kittens to use the litter box, and most cats will use it without fail from that time on. Even stray cats usually understand the concept when shown the box and will use it regularly. Cats do have claws, and owners must make provision for this. A tall scratching post in a favorite cat area of the house will often keep the cat content to leave the furniture alone. As a last resort, of course, cats can be declawed.
Lastly, one of the most attractive features of cats as housepets is their ease of care. Cats do not have to be walked. They get plenty of exercise in the house as they play, and they do their business in the litter box. Cleaning a litter box is a quick, painless procedure. Cats also take care of their own grooming. Bathing a cat is almost never necessary because under ordinary circumstances cats clean themselves. Cats are more particular about personal cleanliness than people are. In addition, cats can be left home alone for a few hours without fear. Unlike some pets, most cats will not destroy the furnishings when left alone. They are content to go about their usual activities until their owners return.
Cats are low maintenance, civilized companions. People who have small living quarters or less time for pet care should appreciate these characteristics of cats. However, many people who have plenty of space and time still opt to have a cat because they love the cat personality. In many ways, cats are the ideal housepet.
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"The Hazards of Moviegoing" and "My Job in an Apple Plant" from College Writing Skills by John Langan
The Hazards of Moviegoing
I am a movie fanatic. When friends want to know what picture won the Oscar in 1980 or who played the police chief in Jaws, they ask me. My friends, though, have stopped asking me if I want to go out to the movies. The problems in getting to the theatre, the theatre itself, and the behaviour of some patrons are all reasons why I often wait for a movie to show up on TV or DVD.
First of all, just getting to the theatre presents difficulties. Leaving a home equipped with a TV and a DVD player isn't an attractive idea on a humid, cold, or rainy night. Even if the weather cooperates, there is still a thirty-minute drive to the theatre down a congested highway, followed by the hassle of looking for a parking space, and then there are the lines. After hooking yourself to the end of a human chain, you worry about whether there will be enough tickets, whether you will get seats together, and whether many people will sneak into the line ahead of you.
Once you have made it to the box office and gotten your tickets, you are confronted with the problems of the theatre itself. If you are in one of the run-down older theatres, you must adjust to the musty smell of seldom-cleaned carpets. Escaped springs lurk in the faded plush or cracked leather seats, and half the seats you sit in seem loose or tilted so that you sit at a strange angle. The newer twin and quad theatres offer their own problems. Sitting in an area only one-quarter the size of a regular theatre, moviegoers often have to put up with the sound of the movie next door. This is especially jarring when the other movie involves racing cars or a karate war and you are trying to enjoy a quiet love story. And whether the theatre is old or new, it will have floors that seem to be coated with rubber cement. By the end of a movie, shoes almost have to be pried off the floor because they have become sealed to a deadly compound of spilled soda, hardening bubble gum, and crushed Jujubes.
Some of the patrons are even more of a problem than the theatre itself. Little kids race up and down the aisles, usually in giggling packs. Teenagers try to impress their friends by talking back to the screen, whistling, and making what they consider to be hilarious noises. Adults act as if they were at home in their own living rooms and comment loudly on the ages of the stars or why movies aren't as good anymore, and people of all ages crinkle candy wrappers, stick gum on their seats, and drop popcorn tubs or cups of crushed ice and soda on the floor. They also cough and burp, squirm endlessly in their seats, file out for repeated trips to the rest rooms or concession stand, and elbow you out of the armrest on either side of your seat.
After arriving home from the movies one night, I decided that I was not going to be a moviegoer anymore. I was tired of the problems involved in getting to the movies and dealing with the theatre itself and some of the patrons. The next day I arranged to have cable TV service installed in my home. I may now see movies a bit later than other people, but I'll be more relaxed watching box office hits in the comfort of my own living room.
My Job In An Apple Plant
In the course of working my way through school, I have taken many jobs I would rather forget. I have spent nine hours a day lifting heavy automobile and truck batteries off the end of an assembly belt. I have risked the loss of eyes and fingers working a punch press in a textile factory. I have served as a ward aide in a mental hospital, helping care for brain-damaged men who would break into violent fits at unexpected moments. But, none of these jobs was as dreadful as my job in an apple plant. The work was physically hard; the pay was poor, and, most of all, the working conditions were dismal.
First of all, the job made enormous demands on my strength and energy. For ten hours a night, I took cartons that rolled down a metal track and stacked them onto wooden skids in a tractor-trailer. Each carton contained twelve heavy cans or bottles of apple juice. A carton shot down the track about every fifteen seconds. I once figured out that I was lifting an average of twelve tons of apple juice every night. When a truck was almost filled, I or my partner had to drag fourteen bulky wooden skids into the empty trailer nearby and then set up added sections of the heavy metal track so that we could start routing cartons to the back of the empty van. While one of us did that, the other performed the stacking work of two men.
I would not have minded the difficulty of the work so much if the pay had not been so poor. I was paid the minimum wage of that time, two dollars an hour, plus the minimum of a nickel extra for working the night shift. Because of the low salary, I felt compelled to get as much overtime pay as possible. Everything over eight hours a night was time-and-a-half, so I typically worked twelve hours a night. On Friday I would sometimes work straight through until Saturday at noon -- eighteen hours. I averaged over sixty hours a week but did not take home much more than one hundred dollars.
But even more than the low pay, what upset me about my apple plant job was the working conditions. Our humourless supervisor cared only about his production record for each night and tried to keep the assembly line moving at a breakneck pace. During work I was limited to two ten-minute breaks and an unpaid half hour for lunch. Most of my time was spent outside on the truck loading dock in near-zero-degree temperatures. The steel floors of the trucks were like ice; the quickly penetrating cold made my feet feel like stone. I had no shared interests with the man I loaded cartons with, and so I had to work without job companionship. And after the production line shut down and most people left, I had to spend two hours alone scrubbing clean the apple vats, which were coated with a sticky residue.
I stayed on the job for five months, hating all the while the difficulty of the work, the poor money, and the conditions under which I worked. By the time I quit, I was determined never to do such degrading work again.
"Cash or Charge," "Flying the Friendly Skies," and "The Idiot Box?" from English Made Easy: A Canadian Rhetoric and Handbook by Judi Jewinski
Cash or Charge?
For centuries, money has been our means of payment. We use money to buy things, to pay bills, and even to pay debts. From the time that money was invented, people have been carrying it with them wherever they go. However, those people who carry large sums of money have been prime candidates for robbery. As a result, the convenience and safety of money has been questioned. People wanted new methods of payment, so they invented credit cards. Nowadays, many people have begun carrying credit cards for savings, safety, and convenience.
First of all, using credit cards can save people a lot of money. That is, by carrying credit cards, people do not have to pay cash instantly. They receive their bills from credit card companies at the end of the month. In the meantime, they can keep their money in banks to earn interest. With today¡¯s high interest rates, it very wise for them to do so, and this indirectly helps them save money. For example, imagine that a person buys a car for which she has to pay seven thousand dollars. If she uses her credit card, she can earn one month¡¯s interest payment on that seven thousand dollars by putting the money in the bank until the payment is due. Therefore, in comparison to cash, credit cards can save people a lot of money.
Secondly, credit cards are very safe. In other words, those who carry credit cards do not have to worry about being robbed, because they normally carry very little cash with them. Also, credit cards are very well protected by credit card companies. For example, if someone loses her credit cards or if they are stolen, she simply has to go to the nearest credit card agency to report the incident immediately and she will most probably be saved from any misuse of her credit cards. Another feature is that credit cards carry the signature of the owner. So, whenever a credit card is used, the use has to sign the sales slip and the two signatures are compared. Thus, compared to money, which is not protected in any way, credit cards are very safe.
Finally, credit cards are very convenient. Credit card are being accepted by more and more businesses, so credit card users do not have to worry about going to the bank or searching for an ATM machine when they want to buy something. It is also very inconvenient to have to carry a large bag of money if something that is going to be purchased is very expensive. For example, if someone wants to purchase a big screen television that costs three thousand dollars, it would require a large bag to hold all of that cash. If a person is paying the bill with money, it will have to be counted over and over again so that there will be no mistake, whereas a person paying a bill using a credit card needs only to look at the figure on the sales slip. As a result, in comparison with money, credit cards are quite convenient to use.
In today¡¯s sagging economy, people want to get every financial advantage, so delaying payments whenever possible so as to earn interest is attractive. Also, by carrying credit cards, people can save themselves a lot of trouble caused by carrying large sums of money with them, and at the same time they can prevent themselves from being robbed. So, it will not be a surprise when, one day, we become a truly cashfree society.
Flying the Friendly Skies
Most international travelers prefer to get to their destinations in the shortest time possible. The commercial airplane, which can fly at 1000 miles/hour, is the fastest of the commercial transporters. This is the reason why most international travelers choose the airplane as their means of transportation. But, along with the advantage of speed come certain drawbacks. Traveling by airplane has three disadvantages: the terrible food, the inconveniences at the airport, and the cramped environment.
Firstly, the food served aboard an airplane is not appetizing. The food is pre-cooked and then reheated before serving. Since the food is pre-cooked, the taste is bland. Cooked vegetables are soggy, and bread hardens when reheated. Furthermore, there are never enough fresh fruits and vegetables served with the meals. Such problems with the food definitely lead to an unappetizing meal.
Secondly, there are a few inconvenient procedures an air traveler must put up with a the airport before departure. The baggage has to be checked in at least one and a half hours before the departure of an international flight. Although this procedure has its practical reasons, it also inconveniences the air traveler by making him or her go to the airport much earlier than the departure time. There are also the customs officers, who seem to enjoy rummaging around in the painstakingly-packed bag in search of contraband. The air traveler will then have to stuff everything quickly back into the bag after the search in order not to miss the flight. The final inconvenience an air traveler must face is the inevitability of getting lost. Airports like Los Angeles Airport and San Francisco Airport are so large and directions so complicated that the air traveler will not find the plane without losing his or her way at least once.
Finally, there is not much space in an airplane for movement. Within the confinement of the airplane are aisles, lavatories, kitchens, and hundreds of seats for the passengers. The seats are designed to be compact so that the aircraft can have passengers as many as possible. As a result, the passenger does not have much leg room and movement in the seat is limited. The aisle is only wide enough for one-way movement, so two persons have to squeeze past each other in order to go in different directions. In an airplane full of passengers, this happens quite often. The lavatory is another area in the airplane that is cramped. A large person will have trouble jus getting into the lavatory on an airplane. Hence, due to the limited space of the airplane, the trip can be uncomfortable.
Thus, an international traveler must bear with the disadvantages of air travel in order to save time. If one doesn¡¯t mind the cardboard food, interminable waits, and tight squeeze, air travel is fine. Until some better means of travel is invented, the air traveler has no choice but to tolerate these drawbacks.
The Idiot Box?
Electronics are playing an important part in modern life. On the street, electronically controlled light systems are operating traffic lights which direct the traffic flow. In the office, computers are replacing old, out-of-date equipment. At home, there are electronic clock radios, electronic telephones, and electronic microwave ovens. In the long list of household appliances, an electronic television set happens to be the most useful one. Television has become an important member of the family because it informs, entertains, and educates everyone.
Television is a good source of information. Instead of searching through piles of newspapers or listening to a local radio station, people now can sit and relax in front of a television set to watch as well as to hear the news, which is updated and broadcast several times a day. Television brings home weather reports, local, national, and international news. The latest inventions, improvements in medicine, science, and technology are also introduced. In a state of emergency, the broadcasting company will even interrupt current on-air programming to inform its viewers of such events as election results, disasters, and political upheavals. Television helps people to be aware of things happening nearby and far away.
Television is also an in-home entertainer. It offers a wide range of choices for entertainment, from sports, to soap operas such as The Young and The Restless and General Hospital, and also movies, talk shows, and mini-series. Children can have fun with Bugs Bunny and puppet shows. The family sometimes can gather to watch live shows ranging from circus and sports play-offs to the Olympic Games. Whenever people want to be entertained, the faithful television always satisfies them.
Many helpful educational programs are broadcast on television every day. People now can learn to do things without attending a class. Wok With Yan and Microwave Celebrities offer help in cooking skills. The family then will have a chance to taste new entrees for dinner, either for better or for worse, depending on the show and the cook¡¯s observations. Children can learn to spell, to read, and to do simple mathematical problems by following Sesame Street. The family can learn to do stretching and bouncing every morning when the Twenty-Minute Workout is on television. A program called Nature will show various places to the viewers. They can learn about many things that are far away. Everyone can learn to do chores around the house by watching the Do-It-Yourself show. Television has, therefore, fulfilled its duty of bringing home general education.
As a good member of the family, television is indeed an informer, an entertainer and an educator. Television is also receiving help from different sources to keep up its job. Many broadcasting companies are producing better and better television programs. Technicians are improving the quality of picture and sound for television. Others are adding convenience to it, with remote control, multi-channel converters, and the satellite dish, which can bring television programs to even the remotest areas. Television has indeed become an invaluable member of every family today.
