Pigs are in fashion this week

GRAND CENTRAL E-mail Patty Ryan: Click here

By PATTY RYAN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published November 8, 2002

SOUTH TAMPA's first Petco debuted a few weeks ago at Westshore and Kennedy boulevards. The fashion department includes cowl-neck sweaters, rain gear and fleece outerwear, among other comforts.

But humans are taking note of the canine cookie bar, an 18-bowl array of treats at $3.99 a pound. Among them: garlic cookies, heart-shaped liver cookies, honey wheat treats, peanut cookies, zoo cookies and sandwich cookies. Cats enjoy a similar, though smaller, spread.

People can, and do, eat the sandwich cookies, says Shannon Cadorette, assistant manager. They're real cookies, minus evil cocoa.

Pig ears? Old stuff. What's new: pig snouts, oval, palm-sized wafers with nose holes.

She says they're not real. Good thing. I am not yet ready for my dogs to mash face with a pig.

PIGS lead me to discussions of Monday and Tuesday.

Monday, there was Carrie, the movie I vowed not to watch, then watched. You know the Stephen King tale: Carrie White goes to the prom. A vile vixen conspires against her. A bucket of pig blood falls from the rafters.

Telekinetic Carrie exacts her revenge, burning the high school and blowing up a town.

And then she flees, seeking anonymity.

Flees to where?

To Florida, of course.

TUESDAY, there was a pigs ballot initiative. It passed. How could anyone with a heart vote against making life more comfortable for a pregnant pig?

I say to you today my fellow Americans: Larger cages are not enough.

2004: The pigs get Lamaze classes and ice chips.

ELECTION postscript: Hurray. The blight of yard signs is disappearing.

In a good, healthy dictatorship, we never would have suffered so much cardboard. Jeb Bush 's face would simply appear on billboards 365 days a year.

ANOTHER SIGN caught my eye recently. Members of South Tampa's own Church of Scientology have adopted a highway: a stretch of Dale Mabry near Plant High School.

I am not going to suggest they are underachievers. But I should point out their counterparts in Pinellas County adopted an entire city.

I AM MOVED to think of projects that civic and religious groups might tackle in South Tampa.

My favorite: Adopt a Highway Odor. Volunteers could stand along Bayshore Boulevard, near Bay to Bay Boulevard, with cans of Glade to counteract the occasionally malodorous breeze.

Runner up: Adopt a dead mall. Together, we could turn Tampa Bay Center into a birthing center for pigs.

VACATION approaches, calling me to a life of leisure. I'll see you in a couple of weeks.

- Tampa's Kennedy Boulevard was once called Grand Central. Now, Grand Central is a weekly City Times column. Writer Patty Ryan can be reached at 226-3382 or pryan@sptimes.com.

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