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.