Tyler wants a dog and I want to give Tyler a dog, really I do. I'm also grateful that my landlord won't let us have a dog, so I'm off the hook for a little longer while I continue to process the traumatic memories of dog ownership that I've carried with me since childhood. There are terrible little movies that play in my head whenever I think about getting a dog. Would you like to know what these movies are? Of course you would, that’s why you read this silly blog.

In which we learn why Dylan became known throughout the shire as Humperdink: We had a beautiful Collie named Dylan (Dad named him after Bob the same year he bought a CB radio for his rust bucket VW Bug. Dad’s handle was "Moonshadow". Breaker, breaker. As a little aside, the floor fell out of the VW while Dad cruised down route 24 at about 60mph. I’m so glad I wasn’t in the car when it happened.) Dylan just might have been the horniest canine east of the Mississippi in 1975. He reached the pinnacle of his dog-on-human perversion when he chased my 6 year old sister around the yard one crystalline winter day. The poor child moved at the recent speed of my digestive tract because she was stuffed into a one piece snowsuit on top of 3 layers of wool sweaters and long johns and corderoys. She didn't get very far. Let me just interject here with a little detail: there were about a dozen neighborhood kids in the yard that afternoon building snow forts and having an epic war. Audience. Okay, so down goes the innocent six-year-old girl on her back in the foot deep snow. We all see the golden streak of fur flying through the air and do our best to get there first, but there’s no stopping 75 pounds of hot and horny doggy. By the time we got to them, Dylan had my sisters poor head pinned in the snow as he humped like it was the last hump of his life and he knew his balls would be cut off in the morning. Dylan was forever known as Humperdink from that day forth. My sister denies the truth of this story, but I’m here to testify-I was there and that dog could hump. That dog humped her poor head. A humping dog is hard to move.

In which a large semi-retarded dog eats his weight in dry food and the protagonist (um, that would be me, circa 1985) finds a heretofore unheard of use for a snow shovel: First let me say who the fuck names the family dog Spanky? I was away when they got this one and had nothing to do with the naming ceremony. I suspect my 8 year old brother won some sadistic contest of wills with my 15 year old sister (the humped one) involving spying on a make-out party or some such thing.

So the whole family went skiing and left me at home with the dumbass dog that had to be locked in the kitchen with double stacked child gates. They departed while I was at work at the famous Bickfords Pancake House doing a 14 hour shift during which I served four tons of fluffy lard goodness to, well, you know…people who eat pancakes at all hours of the night. I arrived home covered in syrup and reeking of cigarette smoke and the Kalhua I’d been sneaking out of the electric mini bar into my hot chocolates all night long. I had $66 in ones in my pocket and was dreaming of a hot shower and 9 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Not so fast darlin’, someone’s got a surprise for ya!

I opened the kitchen door and at first thought, "Hey, holy shit! They put brown linoleum in before they left. What the fuck?" But of course they wouldn’t do that, and new linoleum stinks, but not EXACTLY like a room full of shit. Spanky, the dumb fucking dog from hell was standing in the middle of the room in a solid inch thick lake of shit and puke staring at me like Charles Bukowski with one of those 4 gallon stainless steel mixing bowls next to him- empty. It took a few minutes to do the measurements, but I’d say by the volume of waste on the floor that my numb nuts family filled that bowl full to the absolute rim, perhaps even mounded it up over the top. Probably a no-brainer to say that the dog ate every last kibble. The poor guy looked like he’d been shooting up heroin all night without a tournquet, too sick for me to be mad at HIM. I grabbed the snow shovel off the back porch and propped the back door open, then went around to the front door, took down the gates and shoveled my way across the WHITE linoleum. It took me about two hours to clean up the mess, and another to give the crazed dog a bath. It only took about 30 seconds wake my family from their sound slumber in their cozy lodge in the great white North and let them know how much I appreciated their foresight. How smart of them to make sure the retarded dog that always eats everything in sight had enough food while they were away. How extra thoughtful knowing I was working for 14 hours serving drunken assholes for a dollar a table because people- there’s nothing I like better than coming home to an ocean of intestinal waste on the kitchen floor. Thank you so very much. Brilliant.

In which we learn just how much the achilles tendon hurts when the jaws of a mini-Satan are locked on it: The pack of us kids were riding our bikes along Vernon St., just cruising around pretending we knew how to look for trouble. Trouble caught up with us-or with me anyway. Out of nowhere (I swear I’d never seen this beast before in my life) a yipping yahoo of a Chihuahua flew through the air and latched on to my achilles. I was 12. I didn’t know anything could hurt this much. I crashed my bike and my friend ran over me with his. The bastard dog wouldn’t let go. Enough said. Jesus. Who made these dogs?

In which Poodle Poop Petrifies and causes an accident with dire consequences: The next door neighbors grandmother moved in with them and she brought with her Mitzy the toy poodle. Mitzy shit everywhere and no one cleaned it up. When no one cleaned up Mitzy’s shit, it turned white and hard as a rock. I cut my foot on that rock hard white shit one day. That shit gave me worms. No shit.

This is why I have 3 cats.

Bran Flakes or Bust

I think I finally understand with every fiber (heh) of my being that constipation is not limited to the digestive tract. It may begin there, but the blockage rapidly spreads its way into the rest of the body and eventually into the life that the poor plugged body is trying to live. No flow. We have absolutely no flow happening here folks and so that's what I can write about today-blockage. Not just your ordinary writers block kind of blockage either. Nope. We're talking all-out everything that could be blocked is blocked and I'm feeling so full of shit physically and mentally and emotionally, oh hell-even spiritually- that I might just break into ten billion dry, turdlike pieces and pave myself a driveway. See? Then I would be useful. I'd like to take this moment to personally thank the person who figured out that bran flakes can fix this problem and made it readily available in 7 different boxes on the shelf at any grocery store in America. Bran tastes like ass, but maybe that's because it's what it's meant to fix. I'm on my third bowl in 24 hours and just praying that when the dam breaks I'm where I need to be-like not on the two hour bus ride home from work, thank you. We'll know it worked when you poor unsuspecting blogfolks get to read about something other than shit and puke when you come to visit. Thanks for stopping by, and hey-don't forget your handy-wipe.

Warning: Graphic content

I’ve seen more than my share of the bottom of a deep, dark lake over the last few weeks. I lost track of how many times I strained my neck trying to see some light shimmering on what I hoped might be the surface.

My sweetheart moved in with us, and let’s be honest-when a man moves in with a woman there’s the expectation that there’ll be at least occasional conjugal contact. Enter the pregnant female body, still in the first trimester sporting some nifty new boobs. We’re talking about the kind of boobage that this woman’s fantasized about having for her whole life. Every five minutes I stick out my chest and make coy comments about my newfound jugadelics. "Jesus fuck! Can you believe these things? Just lookatem!" I can’t wait till the warm weather so I can get them into some low-cut necklines. What? You always loved my tinys? Aww, that's so sweet. But Wow! Wow! Wow! You want to touch them? I know, aren't they beyond amazing? Sure, go ahead, but fair warning sparky, love of my life, you’re likely to find yourself staring up at the ceiling from the kitchen floor trying to figure out why you see the outline of a steak knife protruding from your dumbstruck forehead, haloed by the bug carcass filled lamp globe.

Poor man. I keep trying to get one of the cats to give him a paw job. They’re having none of it.

Then there’s the projectile vomiting working in tandem with a suddenly useless bladder. I drank a small cup of Mexican hot chocolate that had a touch of chile pepper in it. I know you’re wondering what kind of idiot would put that in her pregnant stomach. What can I tell you? It just sounded good.

An hour later I had 3rd degree burns in my esophagus. After a lovely dinner that evening-homemade chicken rice soup, bread and butter, a little salad, NASA launched it’s latest satellite from my stomach, tearing off a minor bit of my throat with it, causing it to gush blood. In the midst of being utterly and completely unable to get my body to stop heaving I pissed myself so hard that I soaked my socks. After cleaning up the unfortunate puddle, I emerged from the bathroom to the concerned faces of my son and my sweetie.

"Mom, are you okay?"

"Just great. Having now pissed myself, I have nothing left to lose."

When have I heard my kid laugh so hard?

I’m the resident birth control representative at work now. Kelly’s free clinic. Pull up a chair. You want to go over the vacation schedule so you can get your tubes tied immediately? Sure, go ahead and use my phone. Don’t worry-you can’t get pregnant from my receiver. What? Noone told you that every food on earth would make you fart like a trucker-most violently when you’re bending down for a bottle of hoisin sauce on the bottom shelf in the crowded international food aisle of the fancy grocery store where all the pretty people in your podunk town shop? Well, that’s just a crime.

No honey, I really don’t know if triple bagging it will do the trick, but hey-it’s worth a try.