Dog's Best Friend

Obama Checking if Bo is Dead

Recently, I was helping a friend repair his fence in his backyard when his bull terrier started humping my leg. Now, a bull terrier is the perfect size dog to drop kick, and seeing how he was already on my leg, I figured I would give it a go. I shed him cleanly, and he flew awkwardly across the yard. Now dogs don't have the ability to land on all fours like cats. Dinkles the Dog, or whatever his name is tumbled hard when he came in for a landing.

"What the fuck!" my friend exclaimed.


That's dog owners for you. Their dog is raping your leg, and they object to the force you use to get them off. At least Dinkles couldn't shoot his spunk on my Yeezys, being a eunuch and all. He's lucky I didn't put him into orbit.

Dogs aren't really your best friend. I know how unpopular it is to say that. Presidents in this country who want to get reelected are advised to get a dog for the White House otherwise dog owners, which is everybody but me, won't vote for them. I read that Obama hated his dog, Bo, a Portuguese Water Dog. There's a few press pictures of him playing with Bo, but I think Obama just stepped out for a smoke and decided to fake interacting with the animal. I know this because Obama was photographed with a football, and everyone knows dogs just don't play with pig skins. Between the pet dander and the cigarettes, the White House must have stunk terribly.


All my friends have pets, and they collectively bitch about the damage they do. Dog owners are often preoccupied with their dog's bowel movements. They discuss this over dinner. Dogs have a limited opportunity to use the bathroom because they don't actually use the bathroom. They use the yard, and some dog owners have to go with them. One of my friends stands outside in the winter at night when it's one degree outside while his dog pinches because his backyard isn't fenced in.

"I'm gonna fence in this yard," he always says.

He's envious of people who have turned their entire backyard into a toilet for their dog. No thanks!

Dog owners always say I'm depriving my kids by not getting them a dog. One of my dog lover friends was lecturing me as to the joys of dog ownership as we walked Dinkles, who squatted to take a shit. My friend donned a rubber glove, crouched down on his creaky knees and extracted the warm lump from the grass then placed it inside a plastic bag. Whatever he claimed the benefits of dog ownership were was replaced by the timeless image and lingering smell of the turd my friend was now toting.

I read that Obama said his daughters really wanted a dog. Truth is when children really want any pet, they really want the pet for like an hour. After that, you're feeding it, cleaning up after it when it pukes on the rug, and paying its vet bills. Spare me the details of the unconditional love your dog pours on you everyday. There really is no such thing as unconditional love. If a jerk like me started regularly feeding your dog, it would forget you completely. All the times you took it on long walks and bitched about your spouse, the Frisbee afternoons in the park, the special trips to the beach, all forgotten just because I poured the Eukanuba into its bowl.

My friend refers to his bull terrier as "a member of the family" and sometimes as "his favorite child." This always makes me cringe. A lot of dog owners get a second auxiliary dog when the primary dog gets old. This dog on deck strategy helps to maintain continuity, but it also highlights the clear difference between children and pets. Parents don't have a second child just to replace the first when it dies. True, the British royal family does that all the time, but they're a bunch of inbred nutjobs.

Recently, I read that post rapture pet insurance is a hoax orchestrated by Eternal Earth-Bound Pets, an organization that offered pet care services after Jesus returns by popular demand for a limited engagement to judge our behavior here on earth. First of all, it's a little presumptuous to think you'll be going with the Savior after He separates all the good people from the douchebags. The odd thing is that anyone would trust the care of a beloved pet to an atheist contending with post apocalyptic earth. Even if it wasn't a hoax, most pets are going to end up in a pot after the cataclysm gets in full mad max mode.

When I was a kid, a lot of consummate dog lovers would tie their dogs to a tree in the backyard and leave for the day. It's just like a human to take an animal that can run and chain it to something, cage a bird that that can fly, or restrict the range of fish to ten gallons. It's not like dogs watch TV or read a book when you're gone. They're pack animals. They listen to the call of the wild like Buck, but dog owners restrict them such that they can't even take a shit until someone comes home.

An Orca Contemplating
Eating a Trainer

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have protested SeaWorld's practice of capturing and breeding orca's in captivity for performances in shows at theme parks. The protesters point out that whales roam in tight-knit family pods unlike the pools at SeaWorld. Millions of dogs are incarcerated in homes everyday in this country in environments that are nothing like the way they lived in the wild. Although dogs have been domesticated, they certainly don't prefer to be alone even temporarily. That's why dogs bark so incessantly. Most dogs have to wait until their owners come home before they can eat. How ethical is that?

Of course, that pales in comparison to the forcible sterilization domesticated pets endure at the hands of pet lovers. To prevent an animal from procreating, you don't have to perform a hysterectomy or castration. You could just tie their tubes or perform a vasectomy, but that would mean Dinkles would still menstruate or occasionally shoot off his spunk when he humps your leg. Pet people collectively don't want to bother with any of that mess so they surgically carve up their pets so the animal fits into a human world. The same people who remove an animals ability to bust a nut refer to me as a "dog hater." Once on Imgur "my most prized possession" was trending. A woman posted several pictures of her dog, Deke, with the caption,

"My most prized possession is my dog Deke. I just love him."

Being a consummate dick my whole life, I was the first to responded with,

"Deke's most prized possession was his balls."

Jackass Alumnus, Steve-O

Steve-O of Jackass fame got a vasectomy in Puerto Rico to stand in solidarity with his dog, "Wendy," but I got news for him. He didn't go far enough. Steve-O's dog had so much of its anatomy removed that the dog is likely now non binary and probably just sits around and eats all day. Steve-O should have gotten an irreversible gonadectomy if he wanted to commiserate with his beloved pet. There is nothing more undoable then getting your balls handed to you in a jar.

Who knows, maybe our pets suffer from mental illness. Most of them are probably pretty messed up from being torn from their families and forcibly sterilized. Some dog owners elect to implant prosthetic testicals in their dogs after castration as if plastic balls were a good substitute for never again being able to have a nut shot. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) actually encourages the practice of "fixing" your pet. I'll bet dogs don't refer to the procedure by that term. The Kardashians implanted unusually large balls in their boxer, Rocky, after fixing his little red wagon. It must have been Kim's idea because after her butt implants, she was okay with never again being able to ride a bicycle. Maybe your dog is offended by being called "dog." They might prefer the term, "canine." Perhaps they want to be a full fledged seeing eye dog and not merely a service pet. Just can't say for sure.

You may have chosen your dog as your best friend, but ultimately, you'll never know if he would have chosen you.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on February 28, 2017.

The Chicken or the Egg

Years ago when I was in fifth grade at Saint Joseph's Catholic School in Rhode Island, I was deemed a "troublemaker." It all started one day when Sister Mary Artifact told us a story about a boy and a scientist. She said,

One day a little boy asked a scientist, "Which came first? The chicken or the egg?"



The scientist asked the boy why he wanted to know. The boy said, "You're a smart scientist. You should be able to tell me which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

The scientist said, "Why don't you go outside and play little boy."

Sister Mary concluded her fable with the ominous warning,

You see, scientists can't tell us everything.

Sister Mary Artifact was French. She was a thousand years old and shaped like a pear. She never smiled. A lot of nuns smacked us around back then. Sister Mary insulted us often in between cracks to the head. She routinely publicly singled me out for embarrassment. Oddly, she always seemed to be coughing up phlegm.
 

I thought about her story in my eleven year old mind. My parents had a subscription to National Geographic Magazine. That was how I got all my science education during the eight years I spent in parochial school. I had recently read an article on evolution. I raised my hand.

"Sister," I began, "If God created the chicken or the egg, then the scientist would have no clue which He made first. If the chicken evolved, then the egg came first."

Sister Mary Artifact looked at me sternly.

"You think you're smart," she issued, "Bobby Languedoc thinks he's smarter than God."

I didn't think I was smarter than God just smarter than her. For some reason I spit out a question that had bothered me during all my years in Catholic School.

"Sister, why does God let babies die?"

Sister Mary was pissed. At eleven, I wasn't good at interpreting the expressions on the faces of people, otherwise I wouldn't have asked her a question. She responded,

"God is infinite. Bobby Languedoc thinks he's infinite too."

Now, I was sure I wasn't infinite. I just wanted an answer. Sister Mary added,

"It's not for you to know. Bobby Languedoc is a real troublemaker."

That label stuck with me for the rest of my time in Catholic school. Recently, a friend of mine forwarded a video of Bishop Barron, the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He has a very prolific online presence with his Word on Fire ministry.

Bishop Barron

Bishop Barron has a PhD in theology. He's very knowledgeable about history. He's a smart guy who offers very interesting perspectives on many religious topics and current events. I watched the video my friend forwarded me. At the end, Bishop Barron took some questions from the audience. A woman asked,

"What do you tell people who ask why God lets children suffer?"

I was very interested in what Bishop Barron had to say since after all these years this question still puzzled me, and he's a way smart dude. Bishop Barron said something like,

"God is infinite. We are a finite mind trying to understand an infinite mind."

That's it? Forty years after my chicken or the egg encounter in fifth grade, and the Catholic Church still punts when it comes to why God lets children suffer? I got the same answer decades ago from Sister Mary Artifact that Dr. Barron was now unloading on this thoughtful woman.

So this got me thinking again about why babies die. It seems so unfair. When a religion depends on an unknowable answer, then we might as well apply that to everything. I think any possible hypothesis should be able to explain most if not all of it. The incomprehensible approach is an assumption which covers the parts of the belief that don't quite fit the hypotheses. A lot of religious concepts were originated to control the masses, not to explain how things might work, like fish on Fridays, the caste system or burkas.

The Bible states that we live and die only once, and we don't marry people in heaven. A priest once told me that heaven is like a big feast. This last bit must have been a huge hit in medieval times when the average family went hungry on a daily basis. He also told me we become nonphysical beings when we die. Even the uptight Muslims believe in 88 black eyed virgins bestowed on martyrs. The problem I have with all of this is that it needs a bit of updating. No one unless they're in a lot of agony wants to die. The idea of heaven as a feast is unappealing to me. Not being married to my wife and not getting any action doesn't sound like a lot of fun. Rather than some well prepared dinner for the life after, I prefer another go around here on earth.

Many religions embrace reincarnation like Hinduism. The problem with this religion is they believe in the caste system here on earth. If you are born a peasant, then be a good peasant in this life, and in the next life, you'll be something better. The Bible says that you can't get into heaven from good deeds. Many Christian fundamentalists believe you need to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ to get into heaven. Nuns used to tell us that if Hitler asked for forgiveness he would have gotten into heaven, and if Mother Theresa stubbed her toe and used the Lord's name in vain just before she got hit by a bus, then she would go to hell. That just doesn't seem fair.

More people have died than are alive today so there must be billions of people in heaven just milling about looking for something to do. If the earth was your project, wouldn't you send people back who did a good job already? I believe if you do more good than bad on this planet, you go back for another whirl. God allows for randomness in conjunction with free will which is why bad things happen to good people, even babies. But God puts you back into the mix if you draw the short straw. A baby who dies is reborn, and God stacks the deck in their favor. Why wouldn't He? He's God.

If you kill someone or yourself, your soul is ended. That much disrespect for life, and you're done. God wants you to live in the real world, in reality, to try your best, to stay off drugs and don't smoke because those things are stupid. He wants you to bring about more good than bad, and preferably very little bad. I don't think you have to believe in Christianity. I think it's more important to not be an asshole which in itself eliminates a lot of us.

I don't think there is a hell or a devil. Those ideas just don't make any sense. Free will brings about enough trouble without a need for some horned dude sneaking about. Why would God let the devil exist? Why doesn't he snuff out that guy right off? Does God really torture millions of people in the fires of hell, or does he just dispatch them and move on? I know the Bible says God can be vengeful, but I don't buy it. Why would an omnipotent being waste time punishing douchebags?

So to answer the question which came first, the chicken or the egg? Evolution says the egg. Creationism could be either. Why do babies die? Chaos and free will add randomness to our lives here on earth. Sometimes, you draw the short straw. Make the best of it, and next time around things will be better.

There's a lot of questions that we'll never be able to answer like is the Loch Ness Monster real, are there aliens stored in refrigerators at Area 51 and what is the song, Tiny Dancer, all about? For everything else, a little logic goes a long way. William of Ockham, a Franciscan Friar, said in the 13th century to always pick the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions.

Life and death seem to make more sense to me ever since I started shaving with Ockham's razor.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on February 23, 2017.

The Real Paris

When our first born was old enough my wife, Christine, and I decided to send him to a private school. There are two reasons why parents would want their kid to attend a private school.

1. You come from a wealthy family, and you went to a private school yourself, and you want the same experience for your kids.

2. You come from a middle class family and were bullied relentlessly in public school and don't want the same experience for your kids.

Both Christine and I heralded from the latter, she having endured both middle and high school run by her town. While it was awful for both of us, it was particularly bad for Christine. When we learned about a private school which emphasized the arts in our town, we were certain that the place would be staffed by avant guard former pot smoking hippies from the 60's who would nourish our son's creative side. That's not necessarily what we got. Instead the staff was more interested in doping up the boys with Ritalin due to their inability to sit still. Since a private school doesn't have to take your child, they're quick to deem them "a problem" especially when doing so covers for their inability to effectively teach.

All the state mandates, thrust upon public schools, which my conservative side initially shunned guides the staff on how to effectively educate fidgety boys without drugs. Meanwhile our private school was trapped in the old ways of teaching like math bees and round robin reading which was ejected from the public school system years ago as studies proved that these techniques provided the least benefit to the students most in need. There was a lot of odd things that occurred over the five years Aidan spent in the private school before we took him out. One of strangest involved scones and Paris.


In my son's class once per semester parents signed up for Family Food Day. This was a day in which the parents brought in their favorite meal for the students and teachers. I think the staff liked Family Food Day most of all since kids are typically happy with simple chow like microwaveable mac and cheese. Anyway, Christine's family food was scones. She makes the perfect scone, and she knows where to get clotted cream and real strawberry jam. If you're not British and don't know what clotted cream is it's a spread made from milk with steam. Several of Aidan's teachers were Brits so scones on Family Food Day was a tall order. Clotted cream, also known as Devonshire cream, was a must have for her Family Food Day.


Whatever went on each week in my son's class was written up and emailed to all the parents. I was certain Christine's scones would make the front page of the weekly classroom activities. When the flyer arrived top billing was given to a mother who had come into the classroom to tell the kindergarteners of her trip to Paris. Christine's scones didn't even make the cut. I asked Aidan about it, and he said,

"Yeah, Dean's mom went to Paris."

As I read the article it was clear that Dean didn't go on the trip nor did Dean's dad. In fact Dean's parents were recently divorced, and Dean's mom went to Paris with her new boyfriend, Steve, who was left out of the article, thankfully. I didn't grow up with a lot of parental guidance, but somewhere in my upbringing I learned that a trip to Paris with someone other than one's spouse was not kindergarten fodder. In fact retelling such a story to a bunch of kids is, how we say, gauche. Aidan elaborated on Dean's mom's trip to Paris.

"She told us she ate a bunny while in Paris," Aidan explained.

I'm sure that wasn't all Dean's mom ate in Paris.

"I told her that I went to Paris," Aidan naively offered.

"What did she say?" I asked.

"That she went to the real Paris. Not the one in Epcot," Aidan recalled.

"Did you tell her you went to the Louvre?" I asked.

"Yeah, she said, 'The Louvre isn't in Florida,'" Aidan recalled.

Aidan asked me why Dean didn't get to go to Paris too. What was I going to tell him?
 

"Well Aidan, Steve wanted to play hide the baguette with Dean's mom, and she told him if he wanted to do that he would have to take her to Paris first."

Actually I told him that Dean couldn't get time off of work.

"He's in kindergarten. He doesn't have a job," Aidan responded.

For a moment I imagined Dean crawling under a loom to change the bobbins as his mother jetted off to Paris with her boyfriend.

Outside the Louvre

Although Christine got a lot of compliments concerning her scones from Aidan's teachers, even the British subjects, to this day I can't imagine why these people thought it was a good idea to write up a divorced woman's trip to Paris with her boyfriend and skip my wife's baking. I thought perhaps Dean's mom might have suggested the idea, and the teachers tried to let the whole thing pass unnoticed. Oh no! They put it in the weekly mailing with top billing. The title of the article should have been,

Dean's Mom Has Sex with Boyfriend in Paris
 

with the subtitle,


Christine's Scones Are "Passable" Says British Teacher.

We left that private school a short time later. I guess in the end we just didn't fit in.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on January 19, 2017.