Dawn of The Planet of the "No Pets Allowed" Signs

Note: This idea was originally posted in my old blog, but it has been completely edited and changed for this blog. This post has no gifs or pictures. It is just history.

No Pets Allowed Signs

Man don't you hate those "No Pets Allowed Signs" so much? Me too! But do you know the history of how they came to be? Well I do! Keep reading, learn something for once!

People love their pets. If you have a pet, you love it. If your friend has a pet, you love it. If your friend tells you about another friend's new pet, you probably want to meet it just so you can love it. People love pets...(start evil sounding music) but not ALL people love pets. There are people that hate pets. They hate their pets. They hate your pets. They hate your pet's pet's pet's PET'S children! These are the type of people that do not allow pets into their businesses and it is at these places you will find signs that read "No Pets Allowed." (evil music ends)

"No Pets Allowed" is a very strong phrase but to fully understand it we must answer the question, "What is a pet?" When most people think of a pet they think of a cat or a dog or a turtle or a guinea pig or a rabbit or a fish or maybe something close to one of these. But a pet can be any animal. A pet could be a cougar or a bear or a shark. Or even a horse! 

A horse as a pet? Of course a horse! And that's where our story begins. With a horse. Unlike the song "Horse With No Name," this horse actually had a name. It's name oddly enough was "Horse With No Name," but that's a story for another time. Let us begin....

It was the early 1800's and the west was only beginning to be explored. Most of the land was untouched by human hands, unless you count Native Americans as humans which the humans at the time did not. People wanted to explore and start a new life for themselves and their families. By people I of course mean white men. If there was three things white men in the early 1800's loved they were whores, booze, and whores and the Old West was full of all three.

Much like any other moment from the past, it was a much easier time back then. No cars honking like a bunch of boners. No dingleberries taking up the sidewalk with their douchebag Segways. Bike lanes weren't even around for hipsters to have an excuse to roll up one pant leg. There were only two ways to get around; horse and train. 

The daily routine of a cowboy out in the Old West was to ride their horse all day then go to the bar at night. The only problem was that they never got off their horse...ever. It wasn't uncommon for someone to spend their entire lives on a horse. They'd sleep, eat, drink, work, and even have sex with whores while remaining on the horse. Of course the horse would quickly die from all sorts of pain, but horses were cheap back then. Cheaper than whores. So cowboys would just buy a new horse and saddle right back up.

Everybody was always riding their horses around nonstop. Even when they would go to the bars and drink all night, they'd still never get off their horse. Why do you think that all the doors back then were swinging saloon doors? Because horses can't open doors, that's why. I don't know how many times I have to say this. Horses are not Velociraptors! So the cowboys would go to the bar, on their horses, and drink, while still on their horses. The problem that this presented was that it was very difficult to fill a bar with horses taking up so much room. Only 7-8 people could really fit into a bar at one time. And if you were a woman who was unlucky enough to be a barmaid, chances were good that you would be trampled to death or smothered to death by the horses while serving drinks.

One bar owner, Mitch, didn't take kindly to horse folk. In fact he hated horses. But why? Why would a man in a world full of horses hate horses? Well give me a second and I'll tell you. Yeezus!

FLASHBACK! FLASHBACK! FLASHBACK!

Mitch is in his young 20's working the fields. He is very attractive. The only thing cut more that those crops are his abs. He's sweating too much to be wearing this hot shirt, so he rips it off. 

 Across the field a lady horse named Horse With No Name looks over and can't believe what she sees. She uncontrollably lets out a Nay. She says "Nay" but what she's really saying is "Oh Yes." Mitch looks over and H.W.N.N blushes, knowing she's caught. Mitch walks over to the young filly and slowly strokes her mane. She returns the favor by slowly stroking his...well...you know where this is going....she's stroking his dong.

The next day, Mitch wakes up naked in a hay bail, but there's no Horse With No Name to be found. He runs outside and sees the horse he just loved getting sodomized by another horse. "You damn bitch! I was in love," he calmly shouted. The beast stops penetrating H.W.N.N and trots over to Mitch. The male horse knocks Mitch down and starts giving him the same treatment that he was giving Ms. No Name just seconds before. Mitch looks over at his love from last night for help, but all he sees in her eyes is a disgusting pleasure of her getting off from watching Mitch being ravaged. Mitch never loved another horse again.

FLASHBACK OVER! 

Mitch bartended at his own bar. Everyday he had to look at these disgusting creatures in his face. They were all the same to him, but he needed to support him and his son. He needed the money, but these horses were becoming too much for him to handle. He soon came up with an idea that he thought could ease his pain. "If these horses are going to be in my bar, they better start paying to be here." The next morning he woke up and imposed a 2 drink minimum for any horse in his bar. 

In today's world a drink minimum is not unheard of but back in the Old West drink minimums didn't exist because no one would ever just get one drink. Everyone was an alcoholic back then. The drink minimum wasn't for the usual drunk humans though. It was for the horses.

Mitch had to deal with tons of problems when he enacted his new policy.  First, the horses didn't have any money. Horses don't work for money, they work for food or sugar cubes. They couldn't buy anything with carrots so how were they supposed to purchase two drinks? Secondly, the horses didn't understand the concept of a drink minimum. The concept of even the simplest of economics can be extremely difficult for a dumb horse to understand. So here Mitch was trying to implement this new idea which was borderline impossible to enforce.

The drink minimum plan was a failure and Mitch was out of ideas. Except for one. A lightbulb went off and he knew what he had to do. He found a rope and hung himself in his bar. He was dead. What else could he do? He was out of money, he wasn't a good bar owner and all he had left was piles of worthless sugar cubes. The sad part of his suicide was that the light bulb that went off was a real literal light bulb. Mitch invented the lightbulb decades before Thomas Edison would. He never realized the worth and value of his invention and died before he ever had the chance to. 

Now that Mitch was gone his son, Buck, took over the bar. Buck was only a child of ten but he knew his shit. He learned a lot from his father on how to run a business but more importantly, how to hate horses. Buck grew up hating horses and blamed his father's suicide on the entire race of horses. He spent his childhood protesting horses' rights outside of stables. He started the Anti-Horse Organization to find like minded individuals who wanted to rid the world of horsekind. Buck's protests fell on deaf ears. Everyone at the time had a horse and used horses for everything. The only other beings who attended the AHO meetings were mice who would constantly get stepped on by horses. The mice and Buck tried to organize attacks against the horses, but they never worked. The best laid plans of mice and men as they say.

When Buck started running his father's bar, he realized the two drink minimum wasn't working and decided that he needed to just get rid of the horses. One night Buck went into his playroom, open up his box of Crayola crayons and wrote down three words:

"No Horses Allowed"

This was revolutionary. Not only was this the first "No Pets Allowed" sign, it was the FIRST SIGN EVER!!! Words on paper posted in a visible public area seems like an obvious idea today, but back then, no one ever did it. Up until this point you just had to know what was where. Most people would aimlessly walk into buildings and keep a log and/or map of the places they would go.

Crowds gathered outside of the bar to gawk at the sign. "What is this?" "What does it mean?" Most people were illiterate back then so the confusion is pretty understandable. After a few hours the whole town was outside of the bar wanting to know the meaning of this sign. They decided to called this new thing a "McSign" after Buck. He last name was McSign after all. Had I not mentioned that yet?

Buck decided it would be best to address the crowd himself as they were becoming restless. He explained to everyone that if they wanted to be a customer at his bar they would have to leave their horses outside. This only led to more confusion. How could a person do ANYTHING while not being on a horse? The idea was ludicrous. People began to yell and shout. Buck realized he needed to put more incentive into his new policy.

Buck came up with two ideas. He knew it would be tough to convince these people to get off their horses so he decided to attack his customers' pride. Buck coined a phrase; "Get off your high horse!" These were old west drunks, not one of those New York City bankers. They didn't want to look better than anyone. They were simple hardworking folk so when Buck attacked them up on their high horse, they soon decided it might look better if they got off.

The second idea was to start a physical therapy office that would help any customer learn how to walk. Buck quickly realized that these people have spent years never using their legs. If he didn't allow horses in the bar, these people would have to walk in, which they were incapable of doing.

AND IT WORKED! The bar became a success. People found out that walking around wasn't so bad and actually made so many things much easier. Soon more McSigns were made for everything from bars to schools to roads. McSigns took off in a big way. The name changed from McSigns to just Mcs, but once the Irish started emigrating to America, Mic became a term used for them and so the term changed to Sign.

Buck was now a rich man in a successful establishment that had no horses. He was proud of the work he was able to acheive but he realized that his success did come with a price. Now that people weren't constantly on their horses, the horses themselves had much longer life spans. They became faster and stronger. Buck knew that his "No Pets Allowed" sign was a success but it was just one battle amidst a war that had just begun. A war between man and horse with only two possible outcomes. The death of mankind or the death of horsekind.

But that's a story for another time...