It’s my belief that, if you’ve already got one bad dog dominating your home life by eating, then puking up, then re-eating everything in your house that’s not chained down, then one thing you clearly do not need is a second bad dog. Four out of five doctors agree that a second bad dog, when added to the first bad dog, would make a total of two bad dogs, which also means twice as much destruction and puppy vomit waiting for you when you get home from work.
The fifth doctor is my wife.
At some point, my wife got the idea into her head that a second dog is exactly what we need to cure our first dog’s behavioral problems. And not just any second dog will do. What my wife wants is a pug dog. A stupid, stupid pug dog.
For those of you who don’t know, pug dogs have the mental capacity of a washrag, which in turn has the mental capacity of Anna Nicole Smith. Which is why no one keeps Anna Nicole Smiths as house pets. Not anymore, anyway.
If you put a pug dog and a pair of gym shorts at the beginning of a maze, the gym shorts would find their way out first. Then the pug dog would eat them. Then he’d throw them up on your slippers.
In summary, trying to fix our dog’s problems by getting a pug dog is like trying to cure Keanu Reeves of bad acting by making him study old Patrick Swayze tapes.
Our first dog, Henry, is a Jack Russel terrier, which is basically like a tiny alligator that’s covered with fur and never stops bouncing. Although they sometimes hide it very well, Jack Russels are known for their intelligence and ability to be trained. For example, if we command Henry to stop chewing on that defenseless baby and put it back where he got it, and to cough up its shoe, plus its rattle, and its brother, nine times out of 10, he’ll do it.
A pug dog, on the other hand, would just stand there with the baby in its mouth, snorting and looking all crazy with its bug eyes rolling around in different directions. Then he’d throw up on your slippers.
My wife’s idea, which actually started making sense after a while, was that our two idiot puppies would spend all day jumping all over each other while mommy and daddy were at work. Then, when we came home, our two exhausted puppies would lay at our feet, all tuckered out from a long, hard day of hiney sniffing.
Enamored with the idea of spending an evening at home that didn’t involve prying our dog’s teeth off of the neighbor kids, I agreed to a test run with a pug dog belonging to a friend who, for reasons that are obvious to me now, was looking to dish the the little drool factory off on someone else.
I knew we were going to have problems when, by the time he had waddled from our friend’s car to our front door, the little pug was snorting harder than George W. at a frat party. His bug eyes were bulging out of his head and his entire body was shaking like Rush Limbaugh stumbling past the pharmaceutical counter at the supermarket. (Jeff 2, republicans 0).
See Henry. See Henry run. See Henry bulldoze the little pug dog and jump on top of him like he was the last defenseless baby on earth. See Henry step on the pug’s face, bite his legs, shove his nose where no sun shines, and sit down where the pug’s neck ought to be.
“Oh boy, oh boy, this is gonna be fun, fun, fun!” said Henry, rolling the pug across the carpet like a White House intern. (Jeff 3, democrats 0)
“Snort, snort, wheez!” went the inverted pug, gasping for air and pedaling his legs like he was trying to get his imaginary bicycle up a very large imaginary hill.
I started to panic. Do dogs get heart attacks? If he doesn’t survive, could we be charged for involuntary dogslaughter? I’m too young and pretty to go to jail!
Our obviously appalled friend snatched up her dog and bolted out the door. As she fled to her car, she looked back over her shoulder, where she saw Henry popping up and down at our front door like the devil on a pogo stick.
True story: we never saw that girl or the pug dog again.
After the pug dog episode came the three-legged dog episode, which some of you might remember from a previous column. To recap: my wife tried to kidnap a three-legged dog she found in a parking lot. Why? Because it had three legs, and she loved it.
So, we had almost killed a pug dog, and we almost got caught trying to kidnap a three-legged mutt in the middle of a rain storm. Was fate trying to send us a message? Don’t be ridiculous.
As we speak, my darling wife is making arrangements for another test-run, this time with my sister’s geriatric cocker spaniel. She’s also decided that she wants a pair of ducks (like, actual living ducks) and a goat. Seriously.
But sometimes a man’s got to put his foot down. I draw the line at goats. The choice for me is goat-free. I’m laying down the law here.
Which means that we’ll probably have a goat by the end of the month.
(Goat 1, Jeff 0)
When I was in fourth grade, my parents thought it would be a good idea to dress me up as a California Raisin for Halloween.
I found myself standing in the middle of the living room, wearing nothing but a pair of my sister’s tights and a brown trash bag over my head. My parents, snorting and giggling, were on the floor, wadding up newspaper and cramming it up into the giant trash bag. Once the bag was stuffed to capacity, my parents tied it off around my waist and cut a hole for my face to stick through.
I waddled over to the mirror, my arms sticking straight out over the bulk of my costume. I looked in the mirror. I looked like giant poop. I looked at my parents. They stood with their hands covering their mouths, their faces red, their bodies shaking. My mother had tears in her eyes. My father had a vein swelling up in his forehead like a cartoon thermometer.
“Son,” my father said, choking, “You’ll be the best-looking terd-with-legs in the whole neighborhood.” And with that, my parents collapsed on the floor in hysterics, panting, wheezing, slapping the floor, occasionally pausing to get a glimpse of my poop costume before erupting with another fit of laughter.
I left my parents rolling on the floor, grabbed my trick-or-treat pail, and headed out the door to impress the neighborhood kids, who had nothing but kind and supportive things to say.
“Check it out! The fat kid’s dressed up like a giant terd!” said one.
“Hey, terd-brain, why don’t you crawl back into the gigantic ass you came from?” added another.
“Give us your candy, fatty, or we’ll spray-paint all over your poop-suit!” said my girlfriend.
When you’re a short, pudgy, pigeon-toed nerdling trapped inside an air-tight poop-suit, the odds are stacked against you. I spent the next few hours darting from house to house, hovering in the bushes and waiting for a lull in the trick-or-treating. When the coast was clear, I would waddle to the door to get my candy, much to the confusion of the homeowners.
“Oh, look Howard, we have another trick-or-treater!”
“What the hell is he wearing?”
“He’s a ... he’s a ... Just give him some candy, Howard.”
“But the kid’s dressed up like a giant poo!”
“Just give him the candy, Howard!”
And so forth.
Eventually, I’d get my candy and shuffle off into the bushes like Quasimodo on a sugar high. On and on I ran, prancing among the trees, my enormous, pear-shaped trash bag flapping in the breeze, my arms suspended in the air, my pupils dialiated, and my tongue wagging out of my mouth in fat, pre-pubescent delight.
My shoes were untied, my tights were riding up something fierce, and I had to pee. Could I do anything about it? No, my arms were useless! But I didn’t care! I was free, free like a piglet loose from the barn! On and on this went until I had a run-in with a rough-looking group of kids. They were menacing, with muscles bigger than mine. They demanded that I hand over my candy, which I did, but not before boldly peeing my pants. Then I ran off, swearing revenge.
Someday I’ll get those girls!
Parents, don’t let this happen to your children. Don’t send them out of the house in a poop-suit. Please, consider their future. Because once you’ve walked around in front of your peers wearing your sister’s black tights, you are doomed to a life of nerdery. I was never one of the cool kids again. Of course, I followed the poop-suit incident with a series of brilliant moves like joining the marching band, parting my hair in the middle, and pegging my pants, none of which really helped my situation. But the point is, you can improve your child’s life by making sure he or she doesn’t leave the house in a terrible costume this Halloween. Allow me to give you a few examples:
Good costume: Gene Simmons
Bad costume: Richard Simmons
Good costume: an extreme BMX biker
Bad costume: the biker from the Village People
Good costume: Prince’s buttless pants
Bad costume: Meat Loaf’s buttless pants
Good costume: Captain America
Bad costume: Captain Underpants
Good custume: chicken suit
Bad costume: poop-suit
If you have already sent your child out trick-or-treating in an embarrassing costume, don’t worry. Sure, his or her life will be a living hell for the next several years, but your child still has every chance of becoming a “cool” person with no nerdy tendencies whatsoever. Like me, for example.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go get in line for “Lord of the Rings II” tickets.
