in which our hero harrumps about travel...

I just don’t like travelling very much. I’m very stuck in my routines and old enough that the thrill of going to some faraway place is really not all that thrilling. I’ve taken enough trips for the Great Yellow Father to experience all the travel hassles, but not so many that I know all the tricks to avoid them. But mostly it’s that I just hate airports, and I really hate the TSA.
For starters, airports are usually out in the middle of nowhere, which means you have to leave your house that much earlier to arrive in time to begin the check-in/security death march. Parking is ridiculously far away. ‘The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step’ probably originated on the way from a car to the airport terminal. And I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that ‘you can’t go home again’ came from some poor sap standing in front of an airport terminal trying in vain to remember where his car was parked.

Arriving in the terminal weakened and disoriented from exposure to the elements, you are confronted by the first Cruel Inverse Reality of Travel: the amount of time it will take you to check in and go through security is inversely proportional to the amount of time you have before your plane leaves. And for a place where they want you to arrive two hours before your scheduled departure time to complete 20-30 minutes of activity, combined with how often flights are delayed, thus guaranteeing hours of waiting, you’d think there would a comfortable chair. Somewhere. But, since all the airplanes are at the airport, if you want to fly, they’ve got you. And once they’ve got you, you can bet the TSA will not let you go.

Ah, the TSA. The Transportation Security Administration: according to their web site, they are the guardians of the nation’s transportation systems. Puh-lease. More like Totally Slowdown Ave-re-thing. You can’t obtain a boarding pass at the airline without a picture ID. Is that good enough for the guardians? Oh no, they have you stop and present your picture ID and boarding pass just for them. They scrutinize your picture, and then start scribbling all over the boarding pass marking this and that for no apparent reason. When they’re done, it looks like a three year-old wrote a note to his Grandma on it. But at least we’re safe to proceed to the next step: the Inspection.

This is where every good intention comes to die, and every impractical, dopey idea blossoms into reality. A reality that has about as much to do with public safety as I do with exercise equipment. One guy – a single individual out of the millions and millions of people who fly – tries to use a shoe bomb, and now every shoe has to come off. One idiot tries to switch out C4 for the cash in his money belt, and every belt has to come off. You know what happens when my belt comes off? My pants fall down! Talk about domestic terrorism…

I’ve got it down now to three totes when I go through security: one for my laptop, one for my backpack (which also contains everything in my pockets: change, wallet, phone, watch, gum, lint, etc), and one for my shoes and belt. I do that one last so I have one hand free to hold onto my pants.

Except that the new X-Ray-Whirl-O-Rama forces you to hold your hands over your head like you’re doing a jumping jack. Great. Hands over head, pants around ankles. Luckily, I take Mom’s advice to heart and always wear clean underwear. But at least the travelling public is safe to fly. Scarred for life, perhaps, but pronounced safe by our guardians and overlords.

It might be easier to tolerate if they at least had a tote-board of all the terrorists caught in their anally-retentive, stupidly over-reactive security net. Except that if there was a big lighted message board flashing “Still 0 shoe bombers caught in Manhattan, KS, since that idiot redefined ‘hotfoot’, but we’re making you remove your shoes anyway”, the stressed-out flying public might be more likely to toss their shoes at the nearest blue shirt than into a grey tote.

Satisfied that every last shred of your dignity has been stripped away, you are allowed to re-assemble, re-dress, and re-enter the mass of humanity heading for your assigned gate. Where you are confronted by the Second Cruel Inverse Reality of Travel: the distance from security to your departure gate is inversely proportional to the amount of time you have to get there. You can be assured that if you’re running late, you better start running, because you’re going to have to get to the farthest point in the airport.

Eventually, you arrive at your gate. Much more eventually, it’s time to board the airplane. And people, ‘carry on’ does not mean literally whatever you can carry on! Here we confront the Third Cruel Inverse Reality of Travel: the size, temperament, and smelliness of your seatmate is in inverse proportion to what you hope to do during the flight. If you want to get some rest and peace and quiet, you will be tortured by a Chatty Cathy or Talking Tom, who will want you to recount an oral history of the last four generations of your family and half your high school graduating class.

Much, much more eventually, your flight completes its controlled crash (another name for a landing) and arrives at the gate. And then everyone jumps up and starts collecting their stuff, as though they aren’t going to half to wait for a hundred people to file off the plane ahead of them. Seriously, people, they haven’t opened the door yet, and you’re in row 27 out of 30– just sit down!

And then when you just want to go home, there’s the Final Cruel Inverse Reality of Travel: your checked bag is NOT going to be the first one down the magic chute. In fact, the arrival of your bag is in inverse proportion to your need for it. And also, lady, your bag doesn’t come any faster because of how close you are to where the bags come out.

Lots ans lots more eventually, you collect your bag and officially end your trip. It’s time to go home. Except… where did I park the ^%@# car!!

in which our hero closes Christmas 2011

We put away Christmas this week, just ahead of a self-imposed end-of-January deadline. Well, not exactly. We packed the decorations into various assorted and sundry containers and hauled them upstairs to the guest room. They'll get moved into the attic when I recover from all those trips up and down the stairs.I get wistful whenever we bring down the Christmas decorations, but this year was especially hard. I told the C&D it sorta feels like Christmas never quite arrived this year. We did the usual stuff - cookie extravaganza, dinner and presents with my folks, dinner and presents with her folks, presents with kids and grandkids - but it seemed disjointed and disconnected somehow. All the right traditions, but the timing was mixed up.

For starters, we had Christmas in Oklahoma during our Thanksgiving visit, because Shane's knee surgery was going to keep them from traveling in December. The upside for the Kirbys was the first wedding anniversary (Dec 24) celebrated just the two of them in their seven year marriage. The downside was no Kirbys at 1359 N Forrest on Dec 25.

There were no Braxtons, either, on account of Preggo Meggo's travel restrictions due to the proximity to her Dec 29 due date. It was the right call, because as much as I would have loved Lucky Penny to arrive for Christmas, I sure didn't want her to arrive in my family room. We needed schedule flexibility from Dec 22 on, in case Penny came early. One thing the C&D was adamant about was she was going to be present for the birth of Grandchild #3. If the call came, we were getting into the car and heading east, even if it meant telling whoever was sitting at the dining room table to lock up when they left.

To avoid that possibility (which even I know is rude, even if it's family), we scheduled Christmas with our families the weekend before Christmas, rather than the usual weekend of. Who knew a simple preposition carried so much weight? It was just... different.

The third Christmas celebration came New Year's weekend, when we went to Megan and Nate's to prepare for Penny. We had lots of time to get everything perfect, because Penny was in no hurry to arrive. Not only did she miss being a Christmas baby, she missed being a due date baby, she missed being a 2011 baby, and she missed being a New Year's baby. The only thing she didn't miss was being induced, but only by a day. But she was worth waiting for - it was beyond wonderful to see our baby girl have a baby girl and become a family.

Not that it all wasn't nice, because I adore my family and my in-laws. And I quite enjoyed being with my best friend and soulmate on Christmas day, just the two of us, for the first time in 31 years. But being the Neanderthal traditionalist I am, I told my Charming and Delightful that while I enjoyed this different holiday season, I hoped it didn't become normal. As hard as I've tried to become more unselfish, more of a servant leader to my family, I admit I want to go back to 'normal'.

Next year, I want too many people in the house, too much noise, too many dogs underfoot, too much garbage, too little sleep, too much to eat, and too soon it's time to go. I'll still be a little sad when it's time to put away the decorations, but you know what? That's normal, too.

in which our hero drags out the last one...

I had to give cats equal time in Feline Fervor:

Author's note: Many thanks to Mary Whitledge, cat lover and early hansaniac, for her contributions to this piece (even if she's unable to recognize them...)

Let me make it clear to everyone at the outset - and especially to you cat people - I do not hate cats. Yes, I am on record as a dog person, but it has never kept me from making fun of them. My mother has two cats I like, sort of. I’ve owned cats, pet cats, fed cats and in my whole life I’ve probably said at least two, maybe three nice things about cats. Please remember that before you go calling PETA on me because I point out some of the, uh, eccentricities of cat ownership. Cat people are so darn serious! The point is to have some fun and make a few jokes - so lighten up a little, okay?

Come to think of it, never mind about my mother’s cats, because the little one climbs on the dining room table before dinner and the fat one sits on the stairs and hisses at me; they don't qualify as my best examples of cat tolerance. But at least I don’t terrorize them like I used to do to my brother’s weird little dog (but if Jerry Springer ever does a show about Mutant-Animals-That-May-Look-Like-a-Dog-But-Don’t-Know-What-They-Are-And-Neither-Does-Anyone-Else, my brother’s going to have to take time off of work and go on TV…). Sorry, I digress; I believe we are here to discuss cats.

Historically, I'll bet that cats were domesticated after dogs. One could, in fact, make the argument they have yet to be domesticated. My guess would be cats waited until Man attained a high enough level of intellectual development to properly appreciate their gracing us with their presence. In ancient Egypt, mummified remains of dogs were common inside the Pyramids, but cats were worshipped - no doubt a condition of their allowing themselves to be domesticated.

I was trying to domesticate some software when an idea coalesced in my head like Jell-O in the refrigerator - owning a computer is like owning a cat. (Speaking of Jell-O, is it possible to pinpoint the exact moment the sugary water and ice cubes become gelatin? You poke it with your finger and all you get is wet, then a minute later it wiggles and its Jell-O. How does that happen?)

Honestly, think about it - when you first get a cat or a computer, they’re cute, they're fun and you just marvel at their energy and all the cool stuff they can do. Then you notice that the older they get, the more they just sit around and if they do anything at all, it's very, very slowly.

Certainly no reason to name either one – they won’t come when you call anyway. And even though you might call you cat Boots, you're going to spend a lot of time re-booting. Say you're trying to read your favorite book - you boot your cat off your lap, then re-boot it, and re-boot it again and again. If you're trying to write your favorite book on your computer, at least once every chapter you're going to re-boot and, well you know.

Cats and computers are so smug and superior. I feel completely inadequate around either one. Have you ever tried to pet a cat and they arch their backs and move just out of your reach so you feel like a dope for even trying? Computers have the same capacity to make you feel stupid just by trying to log on. One little mistake and it's the idiot box for you, Bucky: "Passwords are case sensitive. Are you sure you entered it correctly?"  Well duh - only an idiot would enter the wrong password intentionally.

Have you ever seen either a cat or a computer with a sense of humor? Although cats have paws and computers have pause, and puns are almost always funny. You can use a mouse to move around on your computer or use a mouse to get your cat to move around. But it makes no difference to either one what you want them to do; they're going to whatever the heck pleases them, thank you very much.

Don't even bother trying to understand what either one of them is thinking. While they both communicate non-verbally better than they do verbally, they never have any difficulty denying their mistakes - it's always dependent on the input of others. Yet in the most amazing example of hope triumphing over experience, their owners can't imagine life without them.

In fairness to computers, it should be noted I've never had one throw up a hairball on my bed at three in the morning… In fairness to cats, I've never had one make me want to throw up.

A lot of cat lovers and computer lovers are thought of as weird. While I can't say I disagree, I can say this: welcome to the club, kids. Weird is as weird does.

in which our hero reprints Little Byte Lies...

This one is still very true:

The signs the honeymoon is over are unmistakable. I thought I could keep anyone from finding out, but I was wrong. At first the façade was easy to maintain, but lately I’ve noticed tiny cracks appearing. What once caused rolled eyes now leads to muttering.  Minor annoyances I used to barely notice escalate into open irritation.  An undercurrent of resentment and hostility darkens the entire relationship.  Trust has been shattered. Communication is strained and short, even in public, so the dirty little secret can’t be hidden any longer. The shame is nearly unbearable - I can’t maintain the charade another minute. I’ve got to stop lying to myself and everyone else, so I might as well confess and let the chips fall where they may…

The only way is to just come right out and say it, so here goes: I HATE COMPUTERS!  There. I’ve said it, and I’m not sorry. 

I’m not alone, either. If you were totally honest, you’d admit you hate them too.  I know it’s hard to face, because we develop software every day. Hating what puts food on your table, makes your car payments and pays your children’s college tuition creates what psychologists call ‘cognitive dissonance’, a condition of discomfort between what one knows to be true and what one wants to be true. Psychologists can call it anything they want, I call it stress.

I believed them when they said technology would make my life easier. Ha! Will someone please tell me what is so easy about trying to remember thirty-one different log-on Ids and passwords?

You know why I hate computers? I’ll tell you why I hate computers:

• I hate all the typos from my big fat fingers hitting more than one itty-bitty teeny-tiny key at a time.

• I can’t stand that in one application you ‘tab’ from one field to another, but have to use ‘enter’ in the next one.

• ‘Copy’ won’t, ‘Paste’ don’t, and the only time ‘Delete’ works is when I don’t want it to.

• I hate that you have to type. I can’t type.

• And logic – my children certainly aren’t logical, my car isn’t very logical, business decisions often appear rather illogical, in fact, nothing in my life makes much sense at all – so why do computers have to be logical?

• I hate the smug little dialog boxes that pop up to remind me of every little mistake I make. 

• Or start up routines that take ten minutes to run.

• That cursed hourglass, turning over, and over, and over, and over, and over and over until I just want to scream.

• And the acronyms! PC, MS DOS, LAN, WAN, TCPIP, GIG, MEG, ad nausea.
• Why is it the price drops 25% and the performance doubles the day after you break down and buy your home PC? As if that’s not bad enough, you find out from your brother-in-law, who waited.

• I hate required fields buried at the bottom of forms.
• The way a computer just seems like an automated, hyper-fast version of Murphy’s Law.

• And I hate needing the strength of Samson, patience of Job, the wisdom of Solomon and the power of Moses just to get a new software package out of the stupid box.

All is not lost. I want to like computers. Honest, I do. After all, Ahab liked whales before Moby Dick. Batman and the Joker played cards together in college. Once upon a time I actually liked computers. I can remember watching them do their magic and saying ‘Wow – I sure wish I had one of those.” (Of course, I’ve said that about puppies and kittens too, but they grow into dogs and cats.) 

But that was before I spent every hour of every working day fighting for my life against them. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had to reboot, I could afford to hire a computer consultant to have all this cognitive dissonance for me.

in which our hero reprints O What Tangled Webs We Weave

Not to brag, but I thought some of the titles were quite clever. This one was about the Internet - it's a little dated, but still fun:

Have you noticed how everyone has a web site these days? Everything has a URL.  It’s dot.com this and dot.com that.  These darn web sites are more dot.com-mon than houseflies.  It’s getting to where a guy can’t even dot.com-municate without using the Internet.  The other day my daughter missed dinner.  When she came home, I asked her where she’d been.  She said “Didn’t you check my web site, Dad?” 

A lot of those sites aren’t easy to use, either.  It’s a very dot.com-plicated process.  In fact, searching the Internet can leave you dot.com-atose by the time you find any useful information.  The World Wide Web is like it’s own dot.com-munity, you know?  It’s even got a separate language! To whit:

·         When Internet skydivers jump out of the plane, rather than “Geronimo”, they yell “dot.Com-anche”! 

·         In the Web world, countries don’t wage war against each other; Generals dot.com-mand their armies into dot.com-bat. 

·         Internet dot.com-panies don’t pit their business acumen against each other in the marketplace, they dot.com-pete.

·         Once you put data into an Internet safe, you know it’s secure because only you know the dot.com-bination.

·         After a long hard day on the Web, nothing is more relaxing than a stop at your favorite pub and listening to a jazz dot.com-bo. 

·         Sundays are always special in Web publishing, because the dot.com-ics are in color!

·         Graduates of Internet universities go through virtual dot.com-mencement to receive their degrees.

·         Feedback is an important dot.com-ponent of the Web, so be sure to send in your dot.com-ments!  Remember to avoid rambling dot.com-mentary, unless you’re a professional dot.com-mentator.

·         Rather than a czar, the Russian government might consider the appointment of a  dot.Com-missar to oversee their Internet dot.com-merce. 

·         On the Internet, incendiary rhetoric is referred to as dot.com-bustible.

·         If you get hungry while surfing the Web, grab a virtual bite to eat at the dot.com-missary.

·         Internet dot.com-pensation is often not dot.com-mensuarte with experience.

·         Ads on web sites could be referred to as dot.com-mercials.

·         Web humorists are called dot.com-edians.

·         If the Internet had been invented 4000 years ago, God would probably have    e-mailed Moses the Ten dot.Com-mandments.

·         On the Internet, Marx and Lenin could have created dot.Com-munism as the people’s answer to Capitalism.

·         Drank too much iced tea while surfing the net?  No problem, just look for the dot.com-mode.

·         In the virtual reality of the Web, even in death, Elvis could easily make a dot.com-eback.

·         Since two months equals a year in cybertime, Haley’s dot.Com-et visits the Internet every 14 years.  That’s 588 cyber-dog years!  (To call your dog on the web, just yell “dot.Com-mere, Rex!”)

·         After a bad day at work, web designers like to gather together over an adult beverage and dot.com-miserate.

·         You know why those dot.com-puter viruses are so dangerous?  Because they’re very dot.com-municable.

·         I love watching old Western movies on the web, cause in the end all the bad guys get their dot.com-euppance.

·         Punctuation on the web is easy, since only two punctuation marks are valid: periods and dot.com-mas.

·         On the web, you don’t celebrate milestones, you dot.com-memorate them.

·         Everyone lives in peace on the web – it’s very dot.com-munal!

·         When the server goes down, it causes quite a dot.com-motion!

While this list is not dot.com-plete, I don’t want to be accused of not having dot.com-passion for you, dear reader.  Besides, if I do them all, how could I do Oh What Tangled Webs We Weave, The Sequel?!

in which our hero revels in the wonders of technology...

This is slightly dated, but still very true:

I have a hard life.  The 21^st century is a wonderland of technological wizardry, gadgets and sophistication - and I am technically impaired. The closest I get to the Age of Technology is measuring my attention span in nanoseconds.  Technology is supposed to make my life easier – ha!  

The modern telephone has rendered me an object of derision in my own home. My children laugh at me because I cannot operate one.  Take call waiting.  Please.  At least half the time somebody – usually me – gets disconnected.  It’s not always a bad thing, though.  Like when my brother calls hassling me for not returning the compressor I borrowed and I get another call.  My technical impairment kicks into action and just like that - my brother is talking to a telemarketer and I’m off the phone!  

I try and cover my abject telephonic failure with good manners. My mother taught me it’s impolite to carry on two conversations at once. You can imagine how far that gets me. Mom says she remembers teaching me it’s bad manners to hang up on people. Sorry Mom, I’ve got another call…

Letting the answering machine screen my calls avoids the unpleasantness altogether. But should someone actually leave me a message, I have no idea how to retrieve it. Oddly enough, I don’t get many messages. That might be because instead of hearing “Hi, leave your number at the tone”, my callers hear “what’s this stupid red light for? Why is it blinking? Pause. Honey? How do I know if it’s recording? What? The blinking red light? Shoot! Pause. Hon-ey? How do I turn this idiotic thing off? Honey?”

Nor is my problem limited only to incoming calls.  For starters, I can’t remember – does the phone turn on automatically when you pick up? I either pick it up, punch the talk button and hang up on whoever called, or I pick it up, punch the talk button and start dialing into a dead phone. 

The only way I know I’ve dialed all the digits of the number is to listen to the little beeps. But holding the phone close enough to my ear to hear the little beeps keeps me from seeing the numbers. Pushing a number and quickly moving the phone to my ear to verify the beep usually results in a poke in the eye with the antenna. My wife means well - she put the emergency room on speed dial. For all the good that does me. To me, speed dial means that wrong number in half the time, a chance to bypass bewilderment and go straight to frustration. I’ve overcome with a very sophisticated voice-activated calling system:  I yell to my kids, “Come over here and call your grandmother”!

And what is the deal with remote controls – were they planted here by aliens?  I’m capable of learning to operate one in the same way I’m capable of being an Olympic sprinter.  Just because I can doesn’t mean I will.  My girls could make money selling their friends tickets to watch me change the channel. Step right up, folks – hand the Goofball the remote and watch the fun begin…  

For starters, all the darn buttons are jammed so close together my big fat fingers always push at least three at a time. I never get the channel I want. Let’s say I’m going to watch some hockey on channel 14. Here’s how it works:

Mean to push “1”; instead hit 1,2 and 3 together. Nothing happens.

Push “4”; look up at TV to see only the 4 on screen. What?

Start over. Push “1”, get channel 41. Push “4”, look up and see channel 41. Huh? Shoot! 

TV jumps to channel 4 (last channel I pushed). What’s going on? Start over. 

Push “1”, fat finger the 4& 5 and get channel 15. Shoot! C’mon! 

S-t-a-r-t o-v-e-r. 

Wait – I’m on channel 15. I’ll just push the down channel arrow to get to 14. Volume decreases. Oops, wrong arrow! Push the other channel arrow. Nothing happens. What is the deal? Slap remote against palm.     

Garage door opens. Arrrrrg! Throw remote at wall.  Help!

Charming and Delightful arrives, smiles sweetly, and switches to Home and Garden channel. Shoot.

Asks me where I’m going. 

Nowhere fast. I have to go try and make a phone call…

in which our hero reprints Canine Adventures...

As reprints go, this has always been one of my favorite pieces. And my dear friend Ralph Timm still doesn't understand. Enjoy:

Author’s note: The following column contains graphic depictions of irrational emotional ties and devotion to dogs, and is dedicated to my dear friend Ralph Timm, in order that he may understand…

Wouldn’t you love to have been there when Man domesticated the first dog?  Can’t you just picture the scene, as the remnants of a roasted carcass lay scattered around the fire, the now gorged Man watching the mangy canine creep warily towards the scraps?  He takes pity, grabs a leg bone and holds it out toward the animal, saying the Cro-Magnon equivalent of ‘here you go, boy’.   As the dog takes the offered food, the Cro-Man reaches out to scratch the animal’s head.  When contact is made, a bond will be formed between Man and dog that will bind them together forever – wouldn’t you want to be there to witness this historic moment in evolution? 

Wouldn’t it make you want to shout?  I know I would - I’d shout, “STOP!  What do think you’re doing?”  I’d be able to prevent mankind from ever having to throw money into one end and shovel what comes out of the other end.  What a service to I’d provide to society - no stains on the carpet, chewed up shoes, holes dug in the backyard, wild chases through the neighborhood in pajamas, or lying awake listening to howling, barking or yapping all night.  Talk about a positive impact on history!  But then I’d look in the face of that dumb mutt, cowering with the tip of his tail wiggle, wiggle, wiggling between his legs, and my heart would melt.  I’d grab the meat shank from Cro-Magnon, hold it out to the mongrel and mumble something like ‘Okay Spot, do all your business outside the cave and I’ll feed you forever…’ 

What is it about dogs, anyway, that allows them to attach themselves so firmly and permanently to our hearts, regardless of the reality of our experience with them?  Bring together any group of dog owners, and almost without exception they will relate stories of misadventure and canine malfeasance that make the rational mind ask why in the world would you want a dog, anyway?  They have to be the stupidest creatures in creation, with just enough intelligence to digest food.  No other phrase in the English language is more redundant than “dumb dog”. Some folks I know came home to find their Golden Retriever standing on top of the dining room table.  Apparently, he had climbed up using a chair, but wasn’t smart enough to use the same chair to climb down.  This same hound was also discovered sprawled belly up on top of the coffee table, sound asleep.  It’s a good thing the first thing we do with puppies is name them.  If people waited a few weeks to name the animal after a personality trait or dominant characteristic, you’d hear a lot more GetOutFromUnderMyFeets, Stupids, GiveMeThats and Quit-Its at the park than Spots, Rovers and Buffys. You know why dogs greet you like it’s been ages since they’ve seen you every time you walk into a room?  I honestly think it’s because they’re so stupid, they don’t remember you’ve only been gone 30 seconds!

Of course, there’s no fun like being around a dog in a thunderstorm, when they really do odd things.  We were dog sitting for a friend when a storm blew up, and the dog disappeared.  I got involved in something else and put the missing dog out of my head until I went in to use the bathroom.  I heard a noise from behind the shower curtain, peeked behind it, and there she was, shaking in the dark in the bathtub!  Sleep through a storm?  No way, when you’ve got a dog pacing back and forth across the foot of your bed – under the covers, of course.  Or you get the other extreme, when they sit on your pillow and pant.  I fail to see how hyperventilating in the dark relieves fear of storms, but the beast seems convinced it helps.  I guess that’s better than the dopey mutt that sits in the middle of the room and howls like a coyote.  Another guy has a monster that he practically has to wear padded gloves to feed.  One peal of thunder, though, and this snarling, growling beast turns into a quivering, whimpering wuss, running to hide under the nearest bed.  It seems that a direct relationship exists with the size of the dog and how big a baby they become during thunderstorms. 

Does anyone know when dogs were crossbred with goats? They’ll eat anything.  I heard about one that ate a box of D-Con, the mouse poison. The vet said he would be dehydrated for a couple of days, so give him all the water he wanted.  The kid filled a 5 gallon bucket and the dog drank it dry, plus another one the next day!  We watched a neighbor’s dog eat a Koosh ball.  We called the vet, who told us if the ball got stuck in its colon it could kill him.  Turned out he just left kaleidoscope deposits in the back yard all weekend.  Another hound goes to the vet for x-rays to rule out hip dysplasia and voila! the hips are fine, but there is a finishing nail in the intestines.  Operation follows to retrieve the nail, but 10 feet of intestines prove to be too big a haystack to find the needle (nail) in.  The owner is charged with examining droppings to ensure that the nail finds its way out.  You haven’t lived until you’ve tromped through your back yard “examining” dog doo to look for finishing nails. Or Koosh balls. Or loose change, or Legos, or shoe buckles or any one of a hundred other things Hoover has managed to suck down his throat!

Did you know dogs are immune to salmonella? They can eat all the raw chicken they want without fear of getting sick – which they do at every opportunity.  Turn your back on a dog with raw meat on the counter and you’ll be making reservations for dinner.  Why they get so excited over people food is beyond me.  Every time I give my dogs a scrap of meat or cheese, they snarf it so fast they can’t possibly taste it, but they always give you that look that says I don’t know what that was, but can I have some more?  

The single most indelible sound in all of dog ownership has to be that of ‘Ol Rex throwing up.  Heard once, it sears itself permanently into the synapses of the brain.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve snapped awake from the deepest sleep, fully alert to the distinctive uh-ooomb, Uh-Ooomb, UH-OOOMB noise, like the Bellows of Hell, growing from the innards of the beast.  Invariably, a dog will get sick in the middle of the night, so you almost always have about 30 seconds in which to stumble through the dark to find Poochie and guide her to a non-carpeted piece of floor before the awful retching sound that signals the arrival of the contents of the stomach.  Without human guidance, they also have an uncanny ability to use the uh-ooomb interval to go directly to the least desirable spot in your house on which to barf.  Unleashed and unshepherded, I’ll bet Lassie could find the only area rug in an empty airport terminal if she was airsick from an inbound flight.  Amazing.  Gross, but amazing.

Every dog I’ve ever had loved to ride in the car. It never mattered which door I used to let them in, they would immediately jump into the driver’s seat with that dopey oboy oboy look on their face. Apparently they thought they were better drivers than I (though we shall not address the validity of that claim here), since they never moved.  I was left standing in the street shouting and waving at them to move (which the neighbors always found amusing).  It was either that or try to shove them out of the way while squeezing into the seat and getting the door closed – not unlike being the third person into a phone booth – where success is largely dependent on the number and size of the beasts in the driver’s seat.  My pastor’s dog loves to ride in the middle of the bench seat of their minivan.  When they come up on any bridge or overpass, the dog watches it intently, and then jumps over to the window as they go under, barking and trying to bite the bridge.  The drive from where they moved was seven hours – can you imagine how many bridges and overpasses there are between Nashville and Peoria?

And what is the deal with dogs and sticking their heads out the window, anyway?  I’ve had to start a fire on the front seat in January to keep warm when Pepper just HAD to have her face out the window in the fresh air.  I almost lost a dog with the first car I got with power windows.  I was driving along and all of a sudden the dog started thrashing around in the back seat.  I looked back to tell her to settle down, and noticed she was standing on the window button, closing the window and choking herself.  From then on, it was lock the doors, seat belt on, lock out the power windows…You can tell parents of toddlers these days by the little visor thingy on the back window of the car.  Dog owners have a back window covered with dog slime and paw prints.

In twenty years of marriage, we haven’t been without a dog for more than a total of seven months.  Much of that time we’ve had two.  We feed them too much people food, let them onto the furniture, take them for ice cream, stand in the rain with an umbrella over them while they potty, plan vacations around them and pretty much let them take over our lives.  When they get too old and we have to put them to sleep so they can die with dignity, we cry and mope around for days.  Are we certifiable?  Probably.  Defective gene?  Likely, but please don’t try to fix it. All the reasons you can think of for not having a dog (or two) end up being overruled by those adoring eyes, the dopey, smiley faces, the unfailing loyalty and devotion, the tail-wagging-boy-it’s-so-good-to-see-you every time you come home.  From the dawn of time, this whole “man’s best friend” deal has never been about the head, but the heart.  Pet a dog; get a job for life.  If that’s true, then c’mere Spot, and lemme scratch behind your ears.