By Steve Fey

I was searching my feeble mind for a topic for this article when I came across this headline:

I don’t know about lamps in your house, but when I buy a lamp, the thing I expect it to do is to glow in the dark! Why else would you even want a lamp if not to glow? Surely there are better paper weights out there, and a lamp makes a lousy refrigerator too. I used to live in Colorado, and here you see how the average IQ in that state has deteriorated since my moving away.

Here’s another headline, this one from the international news section:

That seemed pretty mundane in light of the sort of events we hear about every day, but then I realized that the NYPD doesn’t enforce the laws in London! So, how do they know what’s going on in London? Is New York so upset over losing the bid to host the Olympics® that it has sent undercover agents to London to sabotage their organizing efforts? And did these saboteurs uncover information that Scotland Yard wanted kept a deep dark secret and expose it to the world in a fit of pique?

Long time readers will remember my series about my dog. The experiences chronicled therein explain why I feel uneasy seeing this next headline:

We have two dogs at the moment. One, the secondary or auxiliary dog, is a neutered male Basset hound who wants nothing but to please. If you read the comic strip Get Fuzzy you’ll recognize his equal in Satchel, the long suffering companion to an evil cat. Our version of Satchel, though, is terrorized, as are we all, by his evil older companion (pictured on the start page), a female Basset hound named Buffy (after the character from TV.) She’s a guilty as the other one is guileless. She plots, connives, and generally gets her way through evil manipulation. So, my question is: which sort of dog is this guy cloning? The loveable fool or the one Satan is afraid to let in? Get back to me on that, will you Mr. Cloning Guy?

So, having broached the topic of our secondary dog leads me to a different bit of odd stuff for this week. My wife, for reasons every woman and very few men will understand, likes cats. I can tolerate cats, but frankly I’m not sure why they’re around. Dogs are entertaining and loyal. Cats are, well, cats. But, this particular cat, still a kitten at this point, I kind of like. For one thing she’s got nice smooth fur that should make a good lining for some ski gloves some day. But beyond that, she runs all over our auxiliary dog. If he’s sleeping on the couch, she can and does hop up and force him to get down so she can have at least an entire cushion to herself. This is a selfish and immature thing to do to be sure, but we are talking about a cat here. The amazing thing is that the dog lets her get away with it. I said he was guileless; he’s also overly generous. He loves that kitten; he plays with her and he protects her.

The other dog has a relationship with the kitten, too. What happens is that the kitten will jump up where Buffy is sleeping, probably thinking to drive her away. The result in this case is a snapping yelp that sends the kitten in a fast retreat. The evil hound maintains her chosen bed.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s better to be mean and nasty than friendly and generous. Of course, that’s just a theory. Try it and let me know, okay?