Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Stink, Stank, Stunk
Friday, March 26, 2010
Dat Vito
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Wyatt's Visit
I have been blessed with 11 nephews, nine nieces, and one great nephew named Wyatt, who is 15. With 20 cousins in the mix, Wyatt blends right in. But one Friday evening, Wyatt changed that.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Vampire Spawn
- The Godfather
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Dr. Pederstein
“Could be,’ she said. “But my main focus would be to keep puppies small.”
Friday, March 12, 2010
Love Hurts
Monday, March 8, 2010
It's Showtime
- Grace Hamilton
- Vincent Mancini
Friday, March 5, 2010
Potty Hottie
"You gotta go, you gotta go."
- Capt. McCluskey granting Michael permission to go to the bathroom at the restaurant in "The Godfather."
The Pee Post with advanced “Go Here” pheromones looked like a fat yellow thumbtack. The instructions were straightforward: stick it in the ground, place your puppy next to it, and the miracle of outdoor urination occurs. It was like the Staples “Easy” Button of pet-training products.
The secret was in the pheromones, and the Pee Post claimed to be full of the smelly little things. All living creatures secrete pheromones for a variety of reasons, including sexual attraction. The Pee Post was supposed to make housebreaking easier because it worked with the natural instinct of your pet.
Brian decided it was time to install the Pee Post. He ripped open the package and gagged. It smelled like Dung Beetle breath mixed with road kill. Sick panic overtook his face. He dropped the Pee Post and ran to the bathroom.
“I don’t know about Vito,” Brian said to me as I blew by him to get into the bathroom myself, “but the Pee Post sure worked on me.”
“Don’t touch that thing!" I screamed as I shut the bathroom door. “It’s toxic!” The pheromones worked on me in a way I can't go into on a public Blog.
Nick walked in, whistling after his workout. He stopped mid-step. He crossed his legs. “Oh my God,” he said and barreled into the bathroom.
Christina remained paralyzed in the recliner with her sweater pulled over her mouth and nose, “I can’t breathe,” she choked. “Get that thing out of here!”
Brian stuck the Pee Post in the ground outside. He put the puppy on top of it. Vito caressed it. He licked it. He wrapped himself around it. He pulled it out of the ground and pranced around with it. The dog did everything but pee on it.
Brian came back in from outside with Vito in his arms, shaking his head. No luck. Just as he put Vito on the family room carpet, the puppy let loose so much urine you would have thought that he was a pregnant hippopotamus.
Two hours later, I took Vito back to the Pee Post. He looked at me and winked. He rubbed himself against me like a cat. He tapped my foot with his paw and hopped backward. I think he was flirting with me.
While the pheromones did not appear to work on his bladder, they did stimulate his libido. When I looked into his hormone-amped eyes, I saw a video of his thoughts. He and I were at an Italian restaurant. We shared a strand of spaghetti in some kind of twisted version of “Lady and The Tramp.”
Or maybe that was my own reaction to the pheromones.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
‘Fraidy Feet
“He's still alive. They hit him with five shots and he's still alive!”
- Sollozzo, after attempted murder of Don Vito Corleone
Vito needed to go to the vet for his shots, and I needed to consider the best way to get him there. I could lay him on my lap as I drove, but I worried a runaway Toyota would crash into us from behind, and that Vito would make a lousy air bag. So I found a box in the garage and set Vito inside.
From the screaming, you would have thought he was sentenced to a life of solitary confinement, and that box was his jail cell.
We were greeted full force at the door of the vet by a toddler named Toliver. This youngster wore a pair of black snow boots that threatened Vito. The more Vito recoiled from Toliver’s clodhoppers, the more Toliver pursued the “funny puppy.” While this happened, Toliver’s mother looked at wall photos of puppies and kitties, paper animals safe from Toliver.
While Vito hid behind my legs from Toliver, a woman popped out of nowhere. She asked if she could take Vito’s picture because her son wanted a Husky. I said sure. She knelt on the floor and stuck her cell phone in Vito’s face, which made him lunge backwards, right on top of Toliver’s boots.
As I removed the whimpering Vito from Toliver’s feet, the photo-taking woman vanished. We were called to the front desk to deliver Vito’s morning stool sample and measure his weight. He weighed eight pounds, four ounces, the equivalent of one of Toliver’s boots.
The veterinarian looked just like my 17-year-old nephew Connor, so I liked him immediately. The doctor said Vito had roundworms, and I didn’t care for the guy as much. He said put medicine on Vito’s food for three days straight. The stool that followed the medicine may contain some worms, he said. By now, I was peeved at this young man, and I wanted to call Toliver in from the waiting room so he could put his boots to good use and give Dr. WormNews a swift kick.
Other than the larvae that had taken up residence inside him, Vito was fit. It was time for his five shots, to protect him from doggie diseases. He also needed his claws snipped. Plus, he was to receive a microchip inserted between his shoulders. The microchip will help us locate him if he gets lost or runs away. The needle to inject the rice-sized chip was quite large, said the doctor. Did I want to see, or would it be okay if they took him in the back to insert the computer chip? They could also give him his shots and cut his nails back there. The pending vision of Vito’s wormy poops was enough for me, so I asked that he be taken away.
Judging from the screams, the room where they took him must have also served as the Island of Lost Toddler Boots.
When the vet’s assistant brought him back and laid him in my arms, Vito looked completely out of it.
“The microchip needle must have hurt,” I said. “He cried so hard.”
“He didn’t make a sound when we inserted the chip,” she said. “All that fuss was when he got his nails clipped.”
Thanks, Toliver. Now Vito is scared of his own feet.