Dogs

Sometimes I wish I was a dog. Dogs do not harbor ill will. Of course backed in a corner or abused they can turn on you and may bite you. Even then the minute you show them some love you could see in their eyes that's really all they want. Yes there are some dogs that bite regardless of how well you treat them. Some dogs are dicks. If you think about it though the population of dogs that fall into this category are probably like 1 dick dog in 1000 cool dogs.

Dogs are some of the most loyal creatures on the planet. When I come home, no matter what time of day, my dogs are there to greet me, tongue and tail wagging feverishly. They are even more happy to see The Chosen One for some reason.

Lets say there was a workforce of dogs. I mean like dogs in the work place that understood English and could communicate back to us. For a minute let's believe that dogs are our equals. They work along side of us. They are asked to accomplish the same tasks as we do. We need their assistance and they need ours.

Hypothetically speaking of course, a dog may even be your boss. Imagine being in some sort of work environment and having a dog ask you to carry out some job. He, or if the dog is a female, "the bitch" (female dog), is your boss and if you like working there you need to do it. Either way you carry it out to the fullest extent.

We have created a job place where two species are not only coexisting but they are getting shit done.

One question that has to be raised is does a dog's loyalty change any because they are our equals? Do they use this newfound equal footing as a mechanism to propel them above us? Do they try to better themselves and "get ahead in life" or do they exhibit the same loyalty they have since they were domesticated 1000's of years ago?

We as humans will do whatever it takes to get what we want. Some will claw, scratch or fuck their way to whatever goal it is they seek. Colleagues will not think twice to go behind someone else's back to get what they want. "As long as I get mine, as long as I am taking care of, I don't give a fuck who gets hurt, shit on, stepped on in the back in the process." In the workforce a human's loyalty has no chance against a dog's loyalty.

I want to work with dogs.

Working with dogs would be the cat's pajamas. There would be no back stabbing. There would be no worrying about what was being said behind your back. We would not be in the rat race we are today. It would be man working next to "man's best friend."

There are definitely pro's and con's to working with dogs. I'm willing to work through our differences. For instance, in the "real" workplace I don't have to worry about the guy next to me licking his balls for an hour straight. The water fountain is much nicer to drink out of without dog slobber all over it. I know now I don't have to clean someone else's poop up. People know how to use indoor plumbing, dogs don't. But if we could teach a dog to poop in the toilet, or when the red lipstick comes out, we can tell him..."Not cool Rufus! Put it away...it's gross!" and if it went away great, if not I would have to learn to deal with it.

So from now on I am in search for the job that works with dogs and only dogs. I am tired of working with snakes!

Power Outage=The End?

Summer vacation means no structure for me. I normally live my life around a clock. I wake up at a certain time every morning. I eat the same things at the same time everyday. I go to the gym at the same time. I exercise for the same amount of time everyday. So when summer vacation comes, the irresponsible semi adult that I am, really goes hog wild with no rules.

What I am about to describe happened. It solidifies that I may have serious problems. What is even more bizarre is that I am going to divulge them here for your enjoyment. I may need to seek help after this. In my eyes what I am about to describe was a battle to stay alive. I will not have nicknames like The Chosen One. Today, she is simply my wife.

It is 1:00 in the morning. I awake to a sweat like no other. It is deep into the summer and I sleep with the fan on and the A.C. cranked as cold as my wife allow. However this is different, she and the kids are not here. They are spending ten days in New York. I am alone. I hate being alone no matter what time of day. 1:00 am makes it no different. Why am I sweating?

I take the covers off and try to go back to sleep. It's not working. I usually have a hard time falling asleep anyway and now, after being awake for what seems like hours I realize the fan is off. I didn't turn it off. I know I had it on. I always have it on. I pull the string...nothing. I check the clock that basically rules my life, it is blank. I reach for my cell phone, turn it on and it reads 1:27.

We are lucky enough to have an early warning system in two dogs that bark if they hear needles fall. Nala, our yellow lab, begins to go in a frenzy and starts barking. She had to sense my uneasiness about the current situation. I grab my police style Maglight. A Maglight is a baton shaped flashlight that police use. We used to use a much smaller model in the Marines. I have upgraded mine to the bigger, longer and heavier ones that the police forces around the world use. It is like the ones where the cops come to your car door and shine it in your face when they are pulling you over. If the light goes out and the shit really hits the fan you can always use it to hit someone over the head. They are extremely effective.

With flashlight in hand I unlock the case for my trusty side arm, a Sig P229 with two ten round magazines and night sites. Night sites are three dots located on the sights of a gun. For about 30 seconds I shine the flash light on them and now they are bright as can be. I practice shooting all the time and with this weapon I am very confident at 25-50 feet I can bring something down with ease. A .40 caliber handgun has good stopping power, however I want to upgrade to the HK USP .45 models that the some branches of the military use. A .45 caliber handgun has good killing power. Maybe after these events come out my wife will allow this upgrade.

Loaded and chambered, I go downstairs. Light is off. If someone is in the house I will not give away what direction I am coming from. The night sites fully illuminated will assist in aiming at anything or anyone I need to hit. With Nala finally calmed down I make my way downstairs. Nothing. No one is around. I get to the circuit breaker in the garage and use the flashlight to determine if any one of the circuits was blown. All seems to be in working order.

Our garage has no blinds on the two windows that directly face the door to get into the house. Up until this point it made no sense to me to check outside. While I am in the garage I see through the windows that the street lights are off. I get into the house and look out the windows down the other street, same thing, nothing. No power. That explains why I am now getting flashbacks of all the hurricanes and the outages that they brought with them. I remember being in Florida and really seeing what darkness is like when all the lights are out for miles and miles. Man has taken the ability to see all the stars at night with the lights we keep on. It is truly awe inspiring to see a nights sky with all the stars. As inspiring as it may be it can be equally frightening if you are not used to it.

A rational person would have put everything away and rode out the outage in the coolest place in their house. I have never once said I am a rational person. I decide to take Nala outside with me and see if there is anyone or anything roaming the streets. I leave the Chow-Shephard mix of a dog, Bear. She is old but still packs a mean bark. Her job is to guard the house while I am seeing if the end as we know it is upon us.

As I have said earlier, my wife and kids are in another state, away and somewhat sheltered from what I think is the apocalypse. Something in my head is sure that something to facilitate the end of the world is just around the corner. I try to think responsibly. I try to think like an adult and realize it is just a power outage and nothing else. but all the movies I have watched throughout the years tells me that this is "life imitating art." This is something I have seen before in a cinematic masterpiece that has entertained me throughout my life. I am sure something is wrong and since my family is "safe and away from here" I want this to be a fight for survival.

Cargo shorts, t-shirt and sneakers I venture through the neighborhood looking for some resemblance of life, some movement. Nothing. All is quiet, to me, too quiet. I can't understand why no one else is out looking and seeing what the problem is. If there actually was a problem I don't know if any one who would be out looking had a solution. But nonetheless I searched.

My vast search of the neighborhood revealed nothing. Nothing happened except Nala relieved herself and took a big shit on the neighbors lawn. I had no bag so I left it. At this hour I would have left it anyway. I was happy to leave it. This guys grass was greener than the greenest moss in a Seattle forrest, a little fertilizer from one of Mother Nature's beings may do it good, or it not.

I get back to my house. Since the power is out, I realize that the garage will not open unless I unlock it from the top and open it manually. The thought of pulling the garage door open with my hands seems foreign to me. Another realization that technology makes us extremely lazy and takes away our basic instincts as hunters and gatherers. Other preparations are made because I still feel that this is it. This is my armageddon. I pack my jeep with some basic items such as the case of water I purchased from the grocery store earlier in the day. Some power bars, a few "p.b. and j.'s" (on wheat bread of course, just cause this is the end doesn't mean we can start eating unhealthy), some bananas, three apples, a couple of cans of tuna with an opener, my ipod, two lighters and a flask of 18 year old Elijah Craig Kentucky Bourbon make the cut. By no means will this sustain me for an extended period of time but it will do for the time being. I pack all the supplies along with a back pack containing two of my daughters walkie talkies (who I will talk to I have no idea, but I got two), some extra batteries and clothes. I throw it into the front seat of my jeep and go back inside, and I wait.

I look at my phone and realize I am in good shape because if the shit was really going down, the cell phone towers would be out. So I sit by the front window and wait. I wait and wait and wait some more. I look out the window and search for any movement whatsoever. I waited so long that I fell asleep and when I finally woke up by that same window it is now 6:48 am. I must have been there in that position by the window for a good three hours. I'm totally soar from leaning against the wall and I feel like a complete dumb ass for going through all this trouble. The power is now on and all seems to be right in the world. I look in the jeep and see a cooler, a back pack and my own embarrassment of the previous nights actions.

To be honest I was a little disappointed that it did not come down to a battle for survival. I was sure that I would see the undead lurking around the corner. I was certain there would be apes at the park yelling "DEATH TO HUMANS!" and begin to chase me.

I am left with the notion I watch to many movies regarding the end of the world. I don't want it to end. I love life. I want to live forever. The movie industry has done us all a disservice by polluting our minds by glorifying a zombie or robotic apocalypse. But the Hollywood in me wants to shoot zombies. It wants to struggle and ultimately it wants to be in a fight for survival.

My first therapy session with Dr. Tillman is this afternoon at 3:00 pm.

The Man Who Won The Cold War

According to George Clooney and his buddies, people in Hollywood have apparently always been ahead of the rest of the class when it comes to world issues. Whether it is Clooney himself or some other has been action star such as Danny Glover we were never without the ability to hear such wonderful knowledge being spewed by one of these turds. It has kind of slowed down of late, but a few years back on any given day we could turn on the television and see a star poppin off at the mouth.

In the 80's we were very scared of the big bad Russians. We were treated to Red Dawn, a movie about the Russians and their allies invading the United States and a band of young high school students fighting back. Seeing this movie as a kid I almost hoped for the Russians to invade so I could be a "Wolverine." Then the all too famous Invasion U.S.A. was thrusted upon us and we were treated to Chuck Norris fighting off communist guerillas or communistas. Now add in Rambo II in the mix and we have a trifecta of Hollywood movies that inject an idea of fear towards Russia. Clooney was right. Hollywood types are smart because without these movies I would have never been able to sleep at night. As long as we had heroes such as Mr. Norris, Stallone or Patrick Swayze himself, the Russians would have surely attacked us. I am certain they saw these movies and changed their minds and decided to leave us alone.

These movies can all stand by themselves in telling the tale that at the time, we were afraid of the Soviet Union. Nuclear war and the end as we know it was near. Hell, even the small screen got into the game when The Day After came out starring Jason Robards. I remember my mom and dad wouldn't let me watch it. That is how serious of a movie it was. I was banned from the harsh realities of nuclear war at the age of 10. Thankfully the scenario was fictitious and it never played out because I would not have known what to do in case of a nuclear war. Since this movie came out some 26 years ago I have matured into the adult I am today and I definitely know what to do now in case a few bombs are exchanged.

Up to this point I was afraid of all things Russian. However in 1985 a movie came out that changed the landscape. Never in my life had I seen a movie that made me no longer fear Russia. At this time Stallone was already enjoying domestic success from an earlier in the year release of Rambo II. November movie releases are usually reserved for what the big picture companies believe are Oscar worthy. So when United Artists released Rocky IV on November 27th, they thought, and I agree, they had a winner on their hands. When I found out this movie did not receive any awards I was shocked. After all this movie had a direct result on how the U.S. viewed and finally would deal with the rest of the world. Send Rocky.

This movie was a parallel to the struggle our country had against The Soviet Union. They had more land and must have had a bigger army. So the Russian representative in the picture was Ivan Drago. A huge physical specimen at the time. Early in the movie he is pitted against Apollo Creed. He kills Creed viciously in the ring while Rocky watches in disbelief. This is yet another parallel to our fight against Mother Russia, in the beginning we would have to take some casualties in order to prevail. In steps Rocky to fight for no money, no title, just to avenge his friend's death. He didn't do it for the glory. He did it because he knew it was the right thing to do. If your buddy dies in your arms in combat you want some revenge for the fallen. This is exactly what our hero Rocky does.

Rocky, or the True American Hero as I like to call him, fights the bigger Russian, knocks him out, in doing so he avenges his friend's death. The plot does not stop there. It is part of a much bigger picture that has had world implications since the film was released.

This movie obviously wasn't about just boxing. Any fool can see that. It was about two political views going up against one another. Capitalism versus Communism. Russia versus U.S.A. The makers of this film had the foresight to see that eventually we were going to have to address the Russians. Rocky faced off against the Russians so all of us could live in a world free of fear.

Shortly after this film was released The Soviet Union fell. Rocky IV and the once feared Soviets will forever be intertwined. On behalf of all Americans that no longer fear a Russian invasion I take this time to say thank you to our True American Hero, Rocky Balboa, the man who won The Cold War.

I actually hated this movie. The dialogue was horrible, the fight scenes were way to fake and the characters in it were under developed. I just feel that the implications it had on our nation's foreign policy cannot go overlooked any more.

This picture says it all.

Thanks but no thanks!

What has pushed me into this vat of violent negativity? What has shoved me over the edge where I could actually wish for something or someone physical harm and failure to boot?

It started with Corporate Amerika completely, utterly and absolutely not catering to the small pee-on customer that has been supporting this same shit fuck of a company for 20 years. Does a multi-billion dollar corporation care for someone of my stature that may buy a product every year? Of course not! I wonder if I was a company of similar status or say an event where I had some sort of name recognition where I could put the name of this company on a banner, I'm certain they would accommodate me. Since I am small time, "Hey man, sorry can't help you...You're welcome to buy something else!"

OK, this started the downward spiral of a bad mood. It is not the only thing making me want to pull the hair from my chin. After my bout with "big business" and losing, I went where everyone else goes, my Face Book page. I am sick of Face Book. Wait, I shouldn't say I am sick of it. I actually enjoy it, a lot. So in my state of "fuck the world!" I post something off color. Not a sympathy post but something to definitely evoke a response. As I begin to get lost on there as I have done over the summer I see more and more sympathy posts and pity parties. I am sick of this shit. It's driving me nuts to the point of not wanting to be on there anymore. My cousin started yelling about me because I post about drinking...a lot. One half of the time it is all fake, yes it is fake! The other half I write shit to be stupid. Did I really get a prostate exam on Sunday of all days? NO, I didn't get a prostate exam on last Sunday, at least I didn't get one by a doctor.

These pity status updates solely for the use of having other people write bullshit like "Hang in there kid" or "If I was there I'd give you a big hug!" or my personal favorite "It'll get better buddy!" is just flat out ridiculous. Give me a fucking break! Get over yourself. I don't want to know that you are having a colonoscopy or your great aunt on your cousins side's cat just had a kitten with three legs and you're SOOOOO sad! Fuck you and your sympathy seeking. You cannot make the argument to me that writing a status update meant to make people feel bad for you is therapeutic. It is self-serving. I am sick of it, and for now on if I see a sad update I am giving it thumbs up. I promise. The gloves are off. Put a sad sympathy seeking update on Face Book and whoever it is, my response will be "35goingon14 likes this!" Yes, for now on I like your misery.

It doesn't stop there. The people who respond to these dumb messages are just as bad because they reinforce them with their posts. If someone wants a pity party do what most other Americans do, get a quart of Ben and Jerry's and go to town on Cherry Garcia, watch Sleepless in Seattle and go to bed. I am sure you will get the same satisfaction that a sad status update will bring. Or better yet do what I do, find some poor tele-marketer to take it out on! Fucking with some poor schmuck in India is awesome. That always makes me feel better. Or maybe you could get off the computer and go exercise and listen to some really noisy music and get your pent up aggression out that way. In fact I am going to end this right now because I may start using names and burning bridges and I don't know if I am ready for that. Maybe after "big business" screws me again I will be but for now the names will go unspoken to protect the guilty.

Pondering this subject more deeply than I have originally thought I may be guilty of putting silly things on my page. Yes, they may be for a response but not one looking for pity. So if anyone disagrees with me, Fuck Off! It's a free country and I am entitled to my opinion even if it is as juvenile as they come.

So in retrospect Mr. Big Corporation, I will not accept your offer of mailing you my $175.00 pair of sunglasses and receiving a forty dollar credit.

Thanks but no thanks!

How did I get here?

I am outnumbered 5-1. Basically 10 ovaries 2 testicles. The Chosen One, the 2 little ones and the 2 female dogs to my two testis. Thats 10 -2 or 5-1 if you do the math and simplify!

That leaves me sitting here wondering how I got in this position. The Chosen One is away on business and I am left as the major caregiver, the guardian, the full time parent. This week has been quite easy and my current rant will not be that of a bitchy type or one to complain that I am responsible for my children for the time being. After all they are MY kids. I know when Deb gets back tomorrow afternoon the bingeing will resume and life will continue as easy and as peacefully as I know it and love it.

However I am cursed today with giving comfort and shelter and guidance to 4 screaming little girls. Both of my kids have friends over. One made the cut to sleep here tonight. So for this whole day I have had the pleasure of being around little women and all the problems that accompany 4 different female personas to coexist nicely so I can do what? Play the xbox.

I offered to take them to the pool and get outdoors for awhile but when I opened the door to their room you would think that they were looking at an alien or robot for the first time. I was greeted with four simultaneous screams that pierced my ear drums. They were so freaking loud I was surprised the cops didn't come thinking I was murdering someone or something. It's just me why are they freaking out like this? Anyway I left as quick as I could.

Now comes the hard part or babysitter part, I begin to get bombarded with questions like "Can we do make overs?" I said "Sure thats a great activity to pass the time." Once I had given it more thought I ran as fast as I could back to the room because something told me scissors and nail polish on the carpet were going to be involved. As sure as the sun sets both items where placed neatly nearby on like a doctors tray, in an almost eerie way where some 7 year old ritual or a "rite of passage" was about to take place. Thank God I got there in time cause that was a call I didn't want to make to the other parents involved. "Yea, I am the only one here...I know I look like a criminal but...I know I shouldn't let them play with scissors or nail polish or matches for that matter...yes I know I was wrong and I will pay for the haircut that needs to...yes she will need reconstruction on her hair. I am terribly sorry....you're coming now? OK. I understand." That is not the conversation I want to have, ever!

Shortly after this it was all too quiet in that room so I went in and I asked them what they were doing and they replied "...playing house!" I said "Excuse me? What?! You are playing house?" They simply responded with "...no, like we are caaamping." I said to myself, it can't be that bad, there are no boys in the house, at least I don't see them and they are just quietly hanging out. So I figured that quiet house/"caaamping" game was way better then them running around pissing me off. After all I have been very busy this summer doing a whole lot of nothing. I couldn't possibly bear the burden of taking care of four girls for a couple of hours.

Responsibility is a concept so foreign to me from June to the end of August. "As little as possible" is my motto. Although I am thinking of changing that motto after I saw a dude wearing a t-shirt stating a play on Lance Armstrong's popular slogan "Live Strong." We have all seen that but I have seen the the real message and it read "Live Drunk." So as of now I am changing my motto. I like that better. I wonder if I could go to work with that shirt. Would that be a good message for the kiddies I teach? They'd probably love it.

So I sit here with four girls in the house. 3 of them coming to Grandma's with me so I don't have to cook. 3 of them excited at the prospect they get to wear lipstick to this fancy shmancy shindig down the road. I am going to tell them they need to wear dresses. Lets make it legit. I of course enjoy my mother in laws company, especially when she cooks for me and the kids when The Chosen One is out on the town earning the big bucks. Wait, the term "out on the town earning the big bucks" didn't sound right but anyway she is away and I am here.

What a hypocrite! I almost complain that I have the responsibility to take care of these maniacs yet really nothing changes because I still have someone to cook for me and basically make sure certain needs are met. Should I be proud of this ability to have people want to help out or should I be ashamed because people feel I am almost incompetent? It is my own personal nightmare I deal with everyday. It almost keeps me up at night.

So I get the task of making sure these ladies are happy in my care and don't cringe at the sound that Mommy has to go out of town for an extended period of time. "Do what you want." Don't burn the house down." "Go outside and catch toads." "Come on you're in the way of the tv. I cant see!" "OH Allie, check this out, this guy gets knocked the f**k out!" These are words of instruction and guidance they get under my care. Yea babe, don't go out of town or this is what they get!

This is the thanks I get. I am rewarded with having the pleasure of taking care of these little ladies and make sure all is well for them while the boss lady is away. This is the thanks I get for trying to be a good person in maybe a past life or even my youth. Shit, at some point I thought I should be rewarded with some testosterone of some kind. Where is the football in the house on the floor? Where is the dirt bike? Where are the cleats? Where are the screams of agony when dad is kicking someone's ass? Maybe I will get to kick someone's ass when they start dating...Oh shit, that's not something I really want to think of. A .40 caliber Sig P229 with night sights and maybe an AR15 assault rifle will be readily available. That should deter any wrong doers.

The original question was "how did I get here?" What ever path I had taken to get I am thankful. The two young ladies I have here are really cool. The Chosen One is OK too but I will save that for another day!

More than 6

A conversation came up this afternoon between me and you know who about what is the appropriate amount of beer to consume in one evening. She thinks that 3-4 beers are the right amount. Her words were "it keeps you feeling good and right there."

I don't and never will get this concept. She has it nailed down. She can have a great time on two or three drinks in a night. Me, no f**king way! I live by the creed "I don't drink to have a GOOD time I drink to have a BETTER time! In the immortal words of "Frank the Tank" from the great movie "Old School," "It feels so good when it hits my lips!" Does this mean I am an alcoholic? I don't think so.

Beer doesn't really taste that good to me. Let me rephrase that. The first 10 are delicious and then after that the 11th one they start to get kind of gross. I can have 1 cup of coffee or 1 can of diet soda. I am good and satisfied with drinking 1 of those. I will never just have 1 beer. If I am offered a beer I won't drink it if I know I'm not in it for the long haul.

I spoke to a few of my friends about this and most agree. They seem to think like me and say why have one or three if you can't have 8 or 10?

I have rules to my drinking. I will never consume any drinks during the work week. Sunday through Thursday has been a lesson in sobriety throughout my life. Even when I was in the Marines and there would be parties throughout the barracks with no plans of strenuous activity for the next day, I still wouldn't partake in any drinking. I live by the code of "Weekday Soberness" presently.

All bets are off if there is a 3 day weekend. In the case of a Monday with no responsibilities my friends and I would gather for the "Trifecta" on a Sunday evening. This was derived from a fellow binge drinker who lived by me and visited 3 of the worst bars in our neighborhood one night while riding solo. We didn't live in a shitty part of town, it just so happened that 3 of the shittiest bars happened to be in a square mile and about 5 minutes from my house. I always knew when we had a Monday off that Sunday night was gonna be rough. It got to the point that if we had a Monday off The Chosen One would ask, "you doing the 'Trifecta' this Sunday?"

A small description of the "Trifecta" is easy. First bar we would go to was called "Billy Z's." At the door to get in, you were pretty much guaranteed to see two females fist fighting. This was a cool bar not only for the cat fights but also because it spawned the invention of "long range hard as you can throw" darts. Second bar is a karaoke joint with a Nascar theme called "Turn 3." This bar had rules. You weren't allowed to pick the song you sang, but you were definitely singing a song. Another great aspect of this bar was that apparently smoking crack in the bathroom was OK. It would only land a stern warning. Last stop in the "Trifecta" was a liquor store and a bar. This was a dangerous bar. I didn't feel in harms way singing or dodging darts from thirty feet away, but here I always felt like a fight was waiting to happen. Maybe it was because the first time we went there we witnessed a man of no less then 60 years old passed out on the stage. The fact that the toilet had been ripped from the floor and lay on its side kind of worried me too.

I brought up the "Trifecta" because this night and pretty much all other nights that I'm giving beer my undivided attention requires a drink minimum of at least 8. If it aint 8 why bother? In order to get an invite to the "Trifecta" you had to be able to drink at least 10 beers. We did make an exception and our ladies did receive an invite, once. It wasn't the same.

In all honesty if I am with The Chosen One and we are just chillin at a local pub 6 beers will work. In this case I am OK with the number 6. If I am out with the fellas at some horrific establishments where smoking crack gets you a warning and not a police escort out, 6 doesn't work.....EVER!

By the way, I closed last night out on 4. In bed by 11:30. That sucked! So please, for your sake don't come at me with a weak ass 6 pack.

When the love is gone...

"When the love is gone,

there is nothing you can do but feel the pain. 

If only I could feel the freedom that I've gained 

I could be happier and start again."

If you don't know who sang this then shame on you. She is a wonderful performer. Her name is that of like Prince or Rhianna, singular, a one name type. The lyrical wordsmith who put this together was talking about the fact that sometimes love runs out and what to do after this happens. Never in my life have words rang more true than they do today.

Although she did not write this beautiful ensemble, Cher sings these prophetic words in the first verse of a song called "When The Love Is Gone." As I type these words I am feeling that the love is definitely almost gone. I am feeling that if I lay my eyes upon one of the habitants that reside in my house I am liable to throw her out into the darkness that rests in the ruthless streets of Matthews, North Carolina. 

It is the summer. The time to sleep late. The days that I get to wake up and eat when I want to eat, shit when I want to shit and listen to music when I want to listen to music. I am not on a schedule other than I eventually will get up and do something. Whatever the day brings, I will get to it when I want to get to it. 

10 months out of the year I'm as regimented as they come. I must get that from the time I spent killing Somali's or Iraqi's for the United States Government. For 4 years it was wake up, exercise, shoot some one and then we would party on through the night. That's basically how my life is run now. Everyday I wake up, eat an egg white omelet in my car with my bare hands on the way to work, listen to music and surf the net from 8:00-9:30, substitute shooting the enemy for teasing kids til 3:30 then party the night away until I do it all again tomorrow. 

One could expect that a break is needed from that rigorous schedule I keep. Well that break is now, and I am trying to enjoy it. I was enjoying it up until this morning when I woke up to many a different mess scattered throughout the house. 

The culprit has been at it now for quite some time and I am wondering why she keeps doing it? When is she going to stop? Is it because she doesn't receive enough attention or praise or something else? It pisses me off because she is old enough to know what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. I am tired of waking up to her mess. Hey, guess what dick head...I don't like to clean that up! I don't know, call me crazy but cleaning up your shit is not cool!

I'm sick of this f**king dog! Yes, I've said it. Today I wake up to a mess in the bathroom. For some reason this asshole likes, no LOVES, to rip up tissue paper. It's all over the bathroom floor. This is the first thing I see. I clean it up and wash my hands. I go downstairs now for breakfast and I see an entire pack of gum eaten. Yes, a 20 piece pack of Trident gum devoured in one sitting.  I am sure, soon enough, I will have to clean the puke that will definitely follow that meal. Oh, maybe not considering I just found a pile of shit. Well, at least I know she digested it and I can now tell my kids and the idiots at school that the old wives tale of gum staying in your digestive system for extended periods of time is way FALSE! Don't ask how I know it's the gum.

In the past our beautiful Christmas present that Santa left us that one year has eaten basically everything in site. The list grows everyday. It started that she ate deodorant. After a series of convulsions, violent shakes and a $1000 stomach pump later she is fine. Next up, she ate something that made her narrow head swell to the size of a giant football. To this day I don't know what the f**k she ate that made her head swell up like that, but she never ate it again and her head went back to normal after the vet gave her a Benadryl. A bottle containing 45 pills of 600 mg of Ibuprofen was next. She ate 44. That last one she couldn't get down. The second cone of shame, a stay in the hospital with another stomach pump and a bill of about $1200 was what made her healthy as a horse. For desert some Dove Dark Chocolate washed down with a bag of Twizzlers will have to do. A mess of epic proportions ensued shortly after, prompting my oldest daughter to inquire "Nala, why'd you have to go and shit all over the floor?"

Have I mentioned the whining? I never had a dog that lays around all day and whines or sighs like an old man. This dog gets love from us and all the kids in the neighborhood. She does not go without attention. What the hell is her deal? I am typing and she is sitting at my feet looking at me with these huge brown eyes of sorrow as to say "I 'm sorry man, I see these things and...I just want to eat em. I can't help it. I'm too impulsive. Come on I'm a dog for f**k's sake!" 

I know Nala, I love you too! Cher was wrong, the love is not gone