Just because I needed to think about something besides my job for a moment today, I decided to do a quick survey of Massachusetts towns and their fees for unlicensed dogs. Boy, was that a mistake.
I found that Northampton sees unlicensed dogs as some sort of furry revenue stream, for they have the highest fees in the land (well, the land I surveyed, anyway). As noted below, I am going to be hit up for $60 per pooch for not licensing my dogs last year, whereas if I lived in Amherst, I would pay a mere $30/dog; in Sunderland, $25/pooch; in Princeton, $25; and East Bridgewater, $25.
Worse, when I called the city clerk to ask with whom I can lodge a complaint regarding these fees, I was told: ""We don't make the law--the city council does. They decided this three years ago, and it's our job to enforce them." So, if I wanted to protest, to whom would I complain? "No one. There is no complaint process for dog licenses." I could write a letter to the city clerk, of course, but "that wouldn't do you any good."
What kind of Lilly-livered, bureaucratic hoo-hah is this?! My goddess, I feel my inner libertarian rising up--who knew I even had an inner libertarian?! This is horrifying!!!!
Of course, I could go to the city council and complain there, but the prospect of complaining about dog licenses when they'll probably be discussing whether to ask the government to pull our troops out of Iraq shames me. How petty can a girl get?
Pretty damn petty, apparently.
No, this is not a "I'm happy to be me" kind of day. Not that I have a lot of those, but this certainly is NOT one of those days.
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