Dog talk.

Christmas was good to us this year. I got a nice wad of new underwear, just like every year, and the dogs got a new dog. Well, they think it’s a dog. It’s a cat. But dogs just don’t get that. They think it’s just an unfortunate dog. They were piled on the end of the couch the other day when the cat walked by. I pointed my dog-speak translaterator at them.

“Here comes that new stuck-up dog.”
“I know. Did you smell his butt yet?”
“I tried; he won’t let me.”
“Did he smell your butt yet?”
“Are you kidding? I’m not letting that guy behind me!”
“You think he’s French?”
“No. Too small. German? Is he a deformed Dachtshund?”
“The world is cruel.”
“Does he have those dangly things under his tail like Wilson’s dog?”
“I can’t get behind him. He’s wiley.”
“You think they’re tumors?”
“They have them on their truck, too.”
“Still, everytime I see Wilson's dog walk by . . .”
“You got to turn around—“
“—and check one more time. Me too.”
“They should take him to the vet.”
“Tail cancer. Doggone shame.”
“You said it.”
“Here he comes again. Sniff his butt!”
“Ah crap: he jumped up on the back of the couch!”
They stare at the cat. The cat stares back.
“God, that is one ugly dog.”

Almost there! My other job is 72% funded on Kickstarter! Join up!

You can be part of literary history by joining 60 other businesses and individuals who've pre-ordered their copy of the Beat Cop's Guide to Chicago Eats! on Kickstarter. Just visit the link below:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/112702134/the-beat-cops-guide-to-chicago-eats

Cleaning Tips for the Very Laz...ehh, I'll finish this headline tomorrow.

[My Attorney] is away for three weeks on an all expense paid cruise on the fourth floor of a Motel 6 in D.C. along with nine million other lawyers all trying to prove a very complicated version of "nuh uh." They're working, literally, around the clock, sleeping in shifts, surviving on nothing but sirloin and pinot noir (domestic—the cruelty!). Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I'm working so hard I can barely . . . . zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Oh my god I am on a titanic laze. I haven't gotten out of my chair for four days. I'm surrounded by spent cheetoes bags and pizza boxes. The kids are surviving on Ramen noodles and canned corn. I'm managing to keep them on schedule. They're taking showers but they're drying off with old t-shirts and handfuls of dirty socks.

It. Is. Awesome.

Or it was. Until we discovered [something horrible] and I had to pry myself off the chair to call Orkin. Suddenly it occurred to me that a stranger was going to enter my lair and I looked around at the piles of dog hair and chicken bone chains and threw up. The I went ape shit on the house. I cleaned everything. I cleaned under the lazy susan. You know, in case this guy walks in and says "I need to look under your lazy susan in case there's [something horrible] under there. Under the lazy susan."

Proof I'm cool

So, I kinda wrote half a book. Along with Sgt. David Haynes, I co-authored the new guidebook from venerable Chicago publisher, Lake Claremont Press, to write the follow-up to their famous "Street and San Man's Guide to Chicago Eats," the upcoming: "Beat Cop's Guide to Chicago Eats."

We're already getting some attention and the book isn't even out yet.

Please take a look at the article by Sun Times columnist, Mark Brown, that ran in Sunday's paper.

Please check out our campaign for the book on Kickstarter.

Finally, link up to the book on Amazon.

Picture Day: The Movie

[caption id="attachment_1117" align="alignleft" width="266" caption="You can get this in wallet size. . ."][/caption]

INT—MORNING—THE DEATH BY CHILDREN ESTATE.

Mr. Garlington comes down stairs in gym shorts and a stained t-shirt, his eyes rheumy and caked, his hair a riot. He’s had all of three and half hours of fitful sleep and looks it. He’s about to go wake his daughter.

SARAH: WHERE’S MY BRA!

DAD: Rhmbjkd hdygs?

SARAH: JESUS CHRIST! I SENT IT DOWN TO GET WASHED YESTERDAY!

DAD: Hrrrmgh phlammtgh . . .

SARAH: I NEED A BRA!

DAD: I did six loads of laundry yest—

SARAH: IT’S PICTURE DAY!

DAD: Ok, ok, put the knife down. I’ll go look.

Mr. Garlington descends into the pit, makes his way carefully through precariously piled hills of underwear and socks. He finds no bra. He rifles through the clothes he folded yesterday, unfolding them, leaving them askew. He climbs hip deep into the dryer to see if the bras in question might be hiding in the vents. He returns.

DAD: Honey, I don’t know—

SARAH: THIS SHIRT IS CRAP! LOOK! JESUS! WHAT THE !@$%#$! DO I HAVE TO DO?

DAD: I don’t—

SARAH: GET ME A BRA!

Mr. Garlington redescends into the pit. Small blurry things scurry into the shadowy depths of old sweaters and acid washed jeans. He lifts a stack of blankets to find two garish bikini tops. Perhaps they will do.

DAD: Sarah, these aren’t bras per se, but—

SARAH: THOSE ARE MY BRAS! JESUS!

DAD: This one is lime green and pink and this one is black with gold stripes. I thought they were bikinis.

SARAH: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?

DAD: I . . .

SARAH: IT’S PICTURE DAY! JESUS!

The Princess is delivered to school. Mr. Garlington returns for the boy. He wakes the child who rolls out of his bed into a pair of jeans that are so dirty and caked they’re already drinking a cup of coffee and reading the paper. He pulls on a t-shirt that is clearly pro legalization. His hair looks like a frightened squirrel. They get into the car.

DAD: Isn’t it picture day?

SON: Yes.

DAD: (staring at the squirrel)

SON: What?

The new sick bell

[My Attorney] is sick. My daughter is sick. I'm sick. The only one who isn't sick is our family Typhoid Mary, the boy.

In days of yore, people who were confined to bed were allowed a little bell to ring. Some perky, healthy family member would walk dutifully upstairs and change their bedsheets or bring them tea or read quietly from the collected works of Walt Whitman.

In days of yours truly, there is no bell.

There's texting.

As [My Attorney] lay dying upstairs in the sick bed, she would find herself in need of a gatorade or a box of tissues or [insert 17,000 other things here].

Every five minutes: *ting!* [pls snd g-ade]; *ting!* [need tssues]; *ting!* [get the roof done].

Why am I so Awake at 2 am?

Because tomorrow is the day. If you're a parent in Chicago, tomorrow is the day of peace.

Tomorrow, I will send them off with hugs and kicks in the butt and then turn to my desolate house and sing hallelujahs.
I've had these ingrateful cafeeine freaks under my feet for three long months and I am RED DEE FOR THEM TO DISAPPEAR.

Does this make me bad? Does it mean I don't love them?

Derp.

I love them to death. But holy mother of God, if I hear one more bleat regarding TV remote ownership or dog politics I'm going to make the news.

Tomorrow: I will drink coffee and stare into the beautiful pastoral quaint that is my block (I live in the background of a Norman Rockwell painting); I will watch TV all by myself; I'll play an entire song on the oldies station (Bon Jovi? really?) without some arrogant, snobbish, knee-jerk redirect from a 13 year old music geek who's still processing the difficult concept of his pop attending the concerts of the bands he plays on Guitar Hero.

The world is not enough--field report

With the assistance of his attorney, my boy pushed the allowance of an x-box on our trip to THE WORLD'S FAVORITE THEME PARK because park hopper passes and wads of cash and total independence AND A FRIEND are just not enough.

At four in the morning on the day of the trip, I haul my carcass out to the rented Tahoe and secure the luggage to the top. Allow me to edumacate you on the dynamics of large scale SUV architecture: if you are, like your humble bloggist, of sub stewardess height, then for the love of god rent something short. I tried to yoga my fat ass into position to load luggage into the luggage bag onto of the three-story SUV. I looked like a junebug trying to doggy style a bowling ball.

The kid comes out dragging a suitcase you could use to smuggle a dwarf and yells at me, at 4:30 in the morning:

"Don't drop this this is very important do not let it fall!"

I swing the thing up and into the nano trunk (nice bailout usage, Chevy).

"What's in it?"

"My Xbox and some towels and a blanket or two)"

It takes up the entire microscopic trunk space. It's so big, Coldwell banker is trying to stake a sign in it.

My attorney arrives, unloads everything I've been loading for two hours, and repacks it using thaumaturgy and science and not only does it all fit, we have room for more. Except the xbox/blanket/towel trunk is repacked into a shopping bag which the boy insists should go on top of all the trunk stuff.

We drive to a Cracker Barrel in Kentucky, open the trunk, and he xbox slams into the asphalt like it was hurled by a trubuchet. There is a sickening crack. We all cringe, anticipating the hurricane of abuse he is about to unload on us .

He picks it all up, tosses it into the trunk like last year's news and shrugs.

"I don't know what the big deal is, I'm gonna be at firkin Disney the whole time."

The World is Not Enough

We're going to visit a major theme park. Its in Florida. Its reach, as a cultural meme, as a historical presence in the global funscape, as a generator of a continent's weight of awkward snapshots with suited mascots, is massive. Incalculable. Leviathanic.

And due to some serendipitous shake, we're able to allow the minions to bring a friend each.

Imagine the insane hella good time they are going to have with prepaid meal cards, passes to all of the various kingdoms of this major theme park, a little pocket change, their BEST FRIEND, and the one thing that really, really matters: a cell phone. They will, essentially, be free to roam.

Here's what the girl asks: does the place we're staying at have a pool?

Here's what the boy asks: can I bring my x-box?

This on the very day he arrives home from a week at computer camp at Northwestern University where he had a room in a greystone frat house with air conditioning and wifi, where he was taught the nuances of building online gaming word maps; this, after a summer of six flags, skateboards, and the Vans Warped Tour; this after we feed him.

Can I bring my x-box?

No, you unabashed, ungrateful little ponce, you may not bring your !@#$%^ X box.

And the Award goes to . . .

I cannot tell you how proud I am to accept the "One Lovely Blog" award from the inestimable Sarah Garb, bloggist extraordinaire over at sarahgarb.com. The cash prize was not terrifically impressive but let's face it, I live for recognition alone.

Top Five Euphemisims for You Know What.

5. I'm dropping the kids off at the pool . . .
4. I gotta manifest some destiny . . .
3. I'm parking a Buick . . .
2. I'm researching dark matter . . .
1. RELEASE THE KRAKEN!

The Mystic Minds of New Teens

My kid comes out of his room after going to bed. He does this sometimes because he got a double DNA dose of a head on fire and his brain, she don't slow down much. On the occasion, he comes out with a what the hell look on his face, poses a query, and asks for clarification. I am his Google.

Tonight he wanders out and asks: What if, secretly, Morgan Freeman is retarded?

I still can't stop thinking about it. I mean, first of all, what if Morgan Freeman is secretly cretinous? Like he's the ultimate idiot savant only instead of glance-counting a jumble of Rainman toothpicks, he can memorize an infinite number of lines and speak with such apparent inner conviction that we'll believe anything he says BUT as soon as the camera turns off, someone has to hand him a juice box and turn on cartoons.

Second, where in the last scorched acre of Hell's back forty was my son's mind when he stumbled over this imponderable? You'll never see this kind of thing under a Snapple lid.

Finally, the real kicker, the thing that might just fucking keep me up at night: why did he think I would know?

DIY: Getting Rid of Mice in 10 Easy Steps!

Death By Children is about more than the nefarious and deadly machinations of our spawn or their efforts to render us twitching and pale from their ongoing appropriation of internet porn slang. It's about a lifestyle, a way of going about your day with a kind of Zen focus, a way of being ever more self sufficient and capable. To that end, we present our ongoing series of Do It Yourself projects.

DIY #005: Mice.

Materials:

• Mice.


• 5 Non Lethal Mouse Traps.


• Peanut Butter


• Spoon


• 12 Lethal Mouse Traps


• Bag of frozen peas.


• Band Aids


• 12 Mint/Spearmint Mouse Deterrent Sachets


• Baffled Orkin Pest Control Rep


• The internet

Implementing the DIY Mouse Removal System

1. While sitting in your chair in front of the TV, observe an improbably fat mouse waddle out from under the coat closet door, make his way past the front door, then stop to catch his breath just under the window. You may feel incredulous that this mouse has just stopped there and is visibly panting, exactly the same way you pant when you walk to the mail box.


2. Observe, quietly, without alarm: Hey, look, there's a mous—


3. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!


4. Peel wife off ceiling.


5. When your daughter runs into the room to find out what's wrong, inform her, quietly, calmly, that you have observed a mou—


6. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!


7. Peel daughter off ceiling.


8. At your local hardware store, purchase a discounted bag of mouse traps.


9. To set a mouse trap, carefully pull back the bar, place the tong across the bar into the lip of the bait holder. Carefully holding the trap by it's edges, apply peanut butter to—


10. Apply frozen pea bag to finger for about ten minutes.


11. Apply peanut butter to bait holder.


12. THEN pull back the bar and clip it into the bait holder where you put the peanut butter. It is important to avoid applying the peanut butter on those parts of the bait holder where you attach the spring bar as it might—


13. Apply frozen peas.


14. Using a new trap, apply a small knob of peanut butter onto the bait holder, being careful to leave the lip of the bar holder clear.


15. Place the loaded trap carefully on the floor in the path of the mice, being careful not to touch anyth—


16. Frozen. Peas.


17. Once you have placed loaded traps along the paths used by the mice, remember to check them in the morning. If a trap is not spring, do not attempt to—


18. FROZ! EN! PEAS!


19. Check the traps. Notice the bait holders are perfectly clean. Perhaps you forgot to put the peanut butter on them? Wait, maybe they just don't work. Maybe if you nudge the—


20. [See 18]


21. Replace peanut butter on traps.


22. Next morning, check traps. Notice the bait holders are, again, perfectly clean. The mice ate the peanut butter.


23. Call Orkin.


24. When Humberto, the Orkin man, arrives try not to feel so much like a dork when he points out that the 1/2 inch gap under your screen door is letting mice into your house through the 1/4 gap under your back entrance door.


25. Nod and offer a non-committal HMM HMM when Humberto points out how well you are feeding mice by leaving a solid metric ton of dry dog food in an open bag in the pantry and a good seven gallons piled into the massive dog dish.


26. When you say to Humberto, "I have no idea where they're hiding," try not to seem so surprised when Humberto quickly swivels in place and shines a beam from his super cool LED flashlight into a gap beside your dry bar, illuminating a mouse curled up a into a ball with half a sandwich clutched in his little claws, snoring, and says to you "Maybe there?"


27. Try not to make eye contact with Humberto when, as he is kneeling in the middle of your $40k custom kitchen baiting traps and a mouse walks out into the middle of the kitchen and looks up at him. This mouse is so fat, he looks like a gray tennis ball with a tail. When Humberto looks at the mouse, looks at you, and says 'That is one well-fed mouse," attempt nonchalance.


28. Open a cabinet where you remembered you put a mouse trap. When Humberto asks why you did not bait the trap, explain to him that the ^%$# mouse ATE the ^%$#$@ peanut butter and the %$#@#! things don't work. As you and Humberto look into the cabinet at the &^%$# trap, it goes off, propelling itself out of the pantry into the middle of the kitchen floor, startling a mouse that was crouched behind you and Humberto, catching its breath. As you both watch, the mouse waddles away, stopping occasionally to put its little hand on its little knees and exclaim "I really need to work out."


29. Return to hardware store. Purchase Mouse Repellent Sachets, filled with 60% spearmint and 40% mint, and 140% nuclear powered mint scent whole-house nose bomb. The instructions say to place these sachets into the crawlspaces, closed rooms, closets, and cabinets where mice are active. It EXPLICITLY REFRAINS from advising you to place a sachet in your broiler because you think you saw a mouse there.


30. Refer to #29 for explanation later when you make meatloaf, thereby setting off some kind of cell-permeating Spearmint chemical bomb. Try not to laugh hysterically as your family and dogs are fleeing the house when you see that fat mouse holding a sachet, chewing placidly on a sprig of mint.


31. Move.

High Performance Parenting: The Hairy Eyeball

In this episode, we learn how to apply the time honored heavy artillery of fatherhood: the stare, the look, the dadface. Also known as, the Hairy Eyeball.

Last night, the kid ratcheted his online kill ratio up into the stratosphere right up to the legally agreed-upon bed time. I had checked his grades online and they had improved, but I'd had a long day and  didn't check his assignments. Apparently, neither did he.

As he was going to bed last night he says this to me:

Kid: Dad, can you wake me up at 7:30 tomorrow?

Dad: So you can go online? I don't think so.

Kid: No, no. It's just, I hate rushing in the morning, you know, I hate just jumping into the shower then running out to school. I want a little time just to hang. With you.

Dad: Oh, progeny! Oh, wondrous offspring! Oh, son of mine, thy wisdom knows no bounds! The sun, it doth radiate from thy nether orifi! (Or something like that.)

This morning, after staying up all night making sure the girl was doing her sleep therapy, I hauled my noble carcass out of bed at the ungodly hour of 7:30, as requested by the boy. He shuts his door and I go make tea and I'm thinking, oh well, at least he's interested in something.

I open his door to tell him he's running out of shower time and instead of the harsh staccato of gunfire and the horrified screams the digital dead and dying, I get total silence. I peek around the door and there he is, bathed in the radium glow of his open laptop, writing a report. That little .  .  .

Dad: Is that homework?

Kid: [unintelligible]

Dad: It better not be.

Kid: Come on, dad! This is the first time this semester I didn't do my homework.

Dad: So what? That doesn't make it right.

Kid: Alright!

So I go do my thing. He runs up the stairs a few minutes later.

Kid: Dad, print this right now!

I open the document, a book report, and start reading. Usually, five sentences into one of his reports, my teeth are ground down to nubs from the frustration and tedium of capitalizing names, respelling simple words, and changing there to they're. But the time it starts out like this:

“The executioner works on Tuesdays.”

The first page sets the mood for this haunting work of historical fiction, which is based on the life of Helmuth Guddat Hubner, a member of the Hitler Youth and the title character of THE BOY WHO DARED. Susan Campbell Bartoletti has taken one episode from her Newberry Honor Book, HITLER YOUTH, and fleshed it out into a thought-provoking novel.

Wow! The kid's getting good! He's even got thought-provoking hyphenated. I scroll down, waiting for the telltale squiggly crimson underlines, but they're not there. Instead, I'm reading perfectly spelled gems like this:

Life is not easy for his family or for the German people after losing the Great War (World War I). At school Helmuth learns how the Treaty of Versailles—the peace agreement that ended the Great War in 1918—has forced Germans to make costly reparations, which have led to unemployment, poverty and inflation. Even more, the treaty has caused shame and humiliation to the once proud and cultured German people, who gave the world Brahms, Beethoven and Bach.

Holy awesome, batman! This kid's got some chops! I keep reading.

After seeing a classmate scorned and beaten up for being Jewish, and later watching a Jewish neighbor who served nobly in the Great War get hauled off by Nazi stormtroopers, Helmuth becomes disillusioned and vows to take action. But can one teenage boy stand up against the Nazis? If so, how and at what risk?

    THE BOY WHO DARED is a story about having the courage to act upon one’s beliefs, no matter one’s age or the risks and consequences involved. Bartoletti’s use of flashbacks builds the suspense, and her inclusion of numerous photos, along with a Third Reich timeline, complement the experience of reading this memorable novel.

Jesus Hat-trick Christ! I'm beaming. This is my "That's my boy!" moment! I finally got . . . I . . . wait a minute. He not only used Chicago Manual of Style ALL CAPS for the title of the book in the body of the story; he not only used disillusionment; he used complement. With an E. Correctly! Crap, even my English professor got that one wrong sometimes.

Dammit.



It is at this point that I swivel slowly around in my desk chair, gaze into his highly suspicious face, and apply, generously, the hairy eyeball.

Dad: What's disillusion mean?

Kid: I don't know, hurry up!

Dad: Spell complement.

Kid: Duh, C-O-M-P-L-I-M-E-N-T

Dad: No, the other one.

Kid: Huh?

Dad: Did you write this paper?

Kid: Dad!

Dad: Did you?

Kid: [floor stare of shame; hardly speaking] No.

Dad: Did you read this book?

Kid: [Staring a shame-hole through the floor, hoping to escape; barely audible] No.

Dad: [furiously restraining a torrent of invectives. Voice full of malicious disappointment. Eyeball full of hair.] Get back down there and write a report on a book you've actually read.

He slinks down the stairs. I call the school to report him Tardy—only his second tardy of the semester—and go about my biz.

He comes back forty minutes later and turns in the following, which I present unabridged:

It all strarts when annamarie and ellen are racing home from school. Two men stop them. They are nazi soldiers. (this takes place during world war 2 in which nazi soldiers were targeting jews). Luckily they get away even though ellen is a jew.

That's my boy.

The Times We Live In.

So I'm making supper and I glance out the window and I can see this guy at the corner of our lot. He's got a red wagon with extended cardboard sides and he's kind of staring down the sidewalk past the side of our house kind of blankly.

"Crazy alert," I say over my shoulder into the kitchen. My son elbows me out of the way and stares at the guy over the sink.
"What's he doing?"
"I don't know. What's with the wagon?"
"Why's he just standing there?"
"I'm sure he's just waiting on someone."
"Dude," my son uses my given name. "A grown man with a wagon?"
The girl reports from the front room: "There's a blanket and newspapers in the wagon! I think he's homeless!"
"He's not homeless. Look at his shoes."
"Crazy. Definitely crazy."
The guy turns like he's following something invisible. He moves the wagon like he doesn't know what he's doing. It rolls off the sidewalk into the snow. He rocks it back and forth kind of gently. He looks up. Looks around.
"He's not going anywhere."
"Why us?"
"Dad, can my friend walk home with a crazy guy in the neighborhood?"
"Uh," rapid lawsuit calculations. "No. Tell him to wait."
[pullquote]"How do you know he's crazy?" The friend asks.
"Dude: grown man. Wagon. Blanket. Newspapers."[/pullquote]
"DUDE YOU CAN"T GO HOME BECAUSE SOME CRAZY GUY IS IN OUR YARD!"
"WHAT? OMG!" Rush to the window. The dogs follow the friend. Now two tweens, a teen, me, and two dogs are all staring out the window at the corner sidewalk intersection.
"How do you know he's crazy?" The friend asks.
"Dude: grown man. Wagon. Blanket. Newspapers."
"Right."
The guy looks up, starts pulling the wagon around the corner to our front sidewalk, toward our walk.
"Oh shit! He's coming!"
"Come on, guys, he's not . . . I mean. . ."
"Dad, should we call 911!?"
"No. Just go to your room."
"I'm in the middle of an assault anyway."
They leave. The girl resumes manic T.V. consumption. I go back to washing dishes. I look up through the window and the guy is kind of rocking back on his heals, waving his arms vaguely, like he's talking to himself.
Maybe I should call Dave. He's a cop. He'll know what to do[1. Dave would laugh].
Then a kid walks into the scene from the front of my house.  A poor innocent kid! I drop my towel and I'm thinking I have to warn that kid! I've got to do something!
The guy reaches for the kid with one great maniacal gloved hand . . . and tousles his hair. The kid throws a couple of newspapers into the wagon. The man takes the kid's hand and they walk away, down the block, father and son, delivering the local paper.

13 Things Proving My Son is Part Sasquatch

1. I could sail one of his shoes to France.


2. People keep making plaster casts of his tracks in our front yard.


3. Keeps bumping his head.


4. Against the sky.


5. Pats me on the head and says 'You're adorable' when I'm mad


6. See these shoes I'm wearing? They were his. Last week.


7. Walks to school in five easy steps.


8. His feet hang off the bed  . . . down the hallway out the front door into Minnesota.


9. Wears size 'Jesus Christ!' shoes.


10. Hunts his own food.


11. Can palm a wrecking ball.


12. Really, truly, ought to flush 8 times (but won't).


13. BBC keeps showing videos of him on their YouTube channel.

The Circle of Life

live in a dog house. I say that not because I'm in trouble with [My Attorney], and not because we're merely dog lovers. I say that because my dogs rule the joint with a smelly, farty, drooly, peeful ruthlessness. We don't own them. They own us.

We were a one dog household for several years. Our dog, Tyrone, came to us via the internet, from a Border Collie rescue squad in Minnesota who drove all the way here and wouldn't even take a solitary dime for their troubles. Ty was clearly a troubled animal, having been raised by cats, without a father, away from his litter. He came out to us not long after we took him in and we embraced his sexuality with all the love and support we had. He lives now in our household as a very healthy, very happy, openly gay dog.

But it was pretty clear Ty was lonely, and not for doggy peen, but for a four legged friend to prance around with. This became distressingly clear when we sat someone's dog, an unfixed Golden Retriever with all the brains of a cup of coffee. She and Ty chased each other with such unbridled joy they wore a trench into the ground. They fell asleep in heap and for the first time in many months, I saw a smile on Ty's snout.

My family took it as a sign we needed another dog—but I put my foot down. Our house is not much bigger than a walk-in closet. One dog is already too much. But two? Forget it. I'm proud to say I managed to fight them off for a full year but eventually, their ongoing education and massive genetic intellectual gifts delivered to them an argument I could not put down. One of them says to me: Dad, you work at home, we have a fenced in yard, and it would make us all happy—especially Ty.

I realized I did not have a valid reason to say no. I just didn't want to deal with more dog. I told them all over dinner, my eyes closed in rueful concurrence, that I couldn't say no to them anymore and they were welcome to get another dog. When I opened my eyes, expecting a table full of teary-eyed appreciation, I was alone, the salad bowl still spinning in the middle of the table from the backdraft of their speedy exit. I found them huddled on the couch picking  puppies off of Google.

I assumed the new dog would make Ty happy in the same way the retarded Golden Retriever had, and they did play together a little. But Ty was too old for Whiskey and spent more of his time rolling his eyes and calling attention to just what a titanic dork this little puppy was. And there was the humping. Massive, ceaseless, egregious, perverted puppy pumping, everywhere, all the time. [pullquote]Dog anuses are complex narrative devices, like audio books for barkers. They are the iPads of ass dogs.[/pullquote]It was an astounding display of perversion, which, yeah I know, is some kind of powerplay for dogs and, yeah, I know, it's not actually sexual, but, gentle reader, brave canine apostate, trust me: it was a degenerated, vile, abrogation of decency. Ty didn't merely hump his new protegee in the typical manner of their species, no: he side humped him, bottom humped him, snout humped him; he rolled Whiskey over and belly pumped. It was torpid, shameless, and against God.

And hilarious. Seriously, I was tempted to put it all on YouTube but I was afraid it was too close to actual animal porn and PETA would show up in the front yard.

Then the hippy showed up. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, distant, nomadic relatives abhor a newly constructed empty  basement apartment. My Hippy arrived with a 90 pound Malamute puppy born the same day as Whiskey. We introduced the dogs in the back yard and in true generosity, Tyrone looked at this new musclebound arctic lumberjack of a dog and gave him Whiskey whom Odin promptly mounted with his tongue hanging out and his eyes rolled back in his head.

Then in an astonishing, unforeseen, and truly bizarre turn, Whiskey slipped out from under the lumberjack, whirled around, and jumped up on his furry arse to return the favor. It was like watching an outhouse dry-hump a skyscraper. Odin took it in stride. Then Tyrone cocked his wrist and said, you think that's something? Try it this way, and proceeded to hump Whiskey face first, with a flailing, hideous, clockwork ferocity and a sideways grin on his snoot like some dirty canine uncle. Then Whiskey whipped around to face hump Ty, then Odin face humped Whiskey . . . this went on for hours. They came prancing back into the house and fell asleep in a slump in front of the TV.

Now I know there's some serious canine communication and pecking ordering going on here. I know, somehow, this constant humpfest is a negotiation among the pack. But it looks entirely, and completely, gay. It looks like I am now the proud parent of three ass-centric queerhounds. Sure, I know I'm being given a rare opportunity to witness true pack politics and maybe learn something about dog language—but I'm telling you: they're gay dogs. They bark with a lisp.

Still, I am trying to learn something. Here's what I know so far:

Dogs Have No Loyalty

Odin and Whiskey are escape artists, patrolling our fences with a constant eye for a hole big enough to wedge their head through so they can go poop on the neighbor's driveway. This is the apex of accomplishment for them and they would get away with it if it weren't for Tyrone who WILL NOT LEAVE THE YARD even when the gate is wide open and a raw steak is lying on the sidewalk. He will, instead, stand there and bark a strange slightly strangled yodel which we have come to understand as "The stupid ones are out again!" But it's not just Ty. Odin has learned that I am a lazy slob and frequently leave the butter out which he will promptly eat, resting his gargantuan paws on the granite edge of the counter to lean all the way back to the wall and slurp butter (pizza, bacon grease, guacamole) as Whiskey stands there barking at him in his distinctive "I'm telling," staccato.

Dogs have a complex language

I thought, back when I was a one-dog-man, based entirely on brief encounters on city sidewalks walking my dog, that they merely sniffed each others anuses as a kind of truncated hello. Like handing someone a business card. I was wrong. Dog anuses are complex narrative devices, like audio books for barkers. They are the iPads of ass dogs. This has been driven home to me by the Three Asskateers's insalubrious  habit of ramming their snouts deep into each others holes while I'm trying to watch the Food Network and leaving them there, tails twitching, like the sniffee is actually telling a story out of his butt. Once, all three of them stood with their noses up each others ass in a salacious simulacrum of the circle of life, for five full minutes. I couldn't pry them apart. I don't know what they were saying, out of their omega orifice, but for them, it was damned interesting. It was their assward Avatar.

All dogs are gay

It's not a criticism, just an observation. When my dogs aren't sleeping, face humping, or cramming their cranium up each others crack, they're licking each other. You know, down there. And I don't mean a cursory, tentative lap. I mean deeply committed, thorough, patient osculation; I mean a wang washing. I know they do that to themselves, and loudly, and during dinner—but do they have to take care of their friends too? And so often? I mean, we're talking a parade of perverse peen purification.

I've picked up a few books about the language of dogs and pack mentality but I'm less inclined to learn their idiom because the more we communicate, the more likely it is they will begin to think of me less as a biped and more as a dog to the point that they'll start face humping me in my sleep. Or worse.