Unless you were one of the people listening to the Legislature online Thursday night, you probably have no idea how many members of the Kansas Senate have, at some point in their life, been kicked or beaten on various parts of their bodies by barnyard animals, or been viciously scratched by flying cats.

Furthermore, unless you were listening in, you might be asking yourself why on earth anyone on Earth would ever need, or even want, to know such information. So it was probably just as well that the Senate waited until around 9 p.m. — when everyone else, including the Journal-World’s copy desk, was waiting for their final votes on bills dealing with local elections and teachers contracts — to take up debate on S.B. 97, a bill “relating to contact with dangerous regulated animals.”

Ostensibly, the bill would amend laws put in place in 2006 after a Kansas high school student was killed by a tiger while posing for her senior pictures. That law basically prohibits anyone except USDA-licensed facilities from owning or possessing wild, exotic and dangerous animals. It also prohibits them from letting the general public handle such animals.

S.B. 97 would remove cheetahs and clouded leopards from the dangerous animal list. It came at the request of Tanganyika Wildlife Park in Goddard, a privately owned zoo whose owners want to put on educational programs in which school children could handle baby cheetahs and leopards. The bill would allow “full contact” with animals weighing less than 25 pounds, and more restricted contact with animals weighing 25-40 pounds.

Here, it’s probably important to point out that Statehouse reporters spend a lot of time cooped up in the Statehouse where we don’t always see what’s happening on the cable news networks. So we didn’t immediately get the joke when one of our former colleagues tweeted, “But can we chase llamas?”

Needless to say, there were many in the Senate who saw this as a thoroughly bad idea, including Senate Vice President Jeff King, R-Independence, whose constituents include the mother of the high school girl killed in 2006.

But it soon became a vehicle for every member of the Senate to tell his or her own personal story about rough dealings with animals, including Republican Steve Abrams, a veterinarian from Arkansas City, who told of having live cats hurled at him. Details of that story probably aren’t necessary, but suffice it to say, even tiny kittens have sharp claws.

Some of us waited to see if Abrams would offer an amendment to require licenses for people to carry concealed cats. Instead, he offered an amendment to require anyone wanting to handle such animals to sign a statement saying they understand the inherent risk, although he insisted such a statement would not constitute a legal waiver. It passed on a voice vote. And along the way, he told more mortifying stories of being kicked, bucked and prodded by much larger and stronger livestock.

That quickly set off a chain reaction in which many in the chamber had to tell their own personal traumas with animals, most of which seemed wholly unrelated to the legislation at hand. And there seemed to be little relation between the seriousness of their encounters with their support or opposition to the bill. And to answer your question, no, we couldn’t tell if their support or opposition correlated to their ability to identify the color of #TheDress.

Essentially, the Senate was divided between two camps: those who think it’s less than rational to pass laws permitting children to freely handle wild cheetahs and leopards, regardless of the cats’ size; and those who think all life is inherently dangerous and, thus, it’s futile for government to try to shield them.

After an hour and 22 minutes of debate, the bill passed, 23-17. It now goes to the House.