Break a Leg

I'm not really sure where to begin this week, there's just so much ground to cover. I'll begin things on a personal note, and then move on to more universally relatable topics.

First let's discuss what the kids are calling these days a nerdgasm. There wasn't even a comparable word for this when I was a kid, being a nerd was quite possible the worst insult you could offer somebody, maybe just above being a geek. They even made a whole movie about how these nerds get some revenge, which wouldn't make any sense today since nerds rule the world. In any event, my particular nerdgasm relies on the knowledge that not one, not two, but three universal indicators of nerd-itude are happening this very year. This very summer!

Indiana Jones, Batman, and the X-Files are set to ruin my job and my relationship with my family by July's end. How could this have possibly happened? Did you ever think in your wildest imagination that these three movies would all be coming out within two months of one another? I would outright proclaim this the best year of my life except that I have a wife and a son, and at least 50% of them actually read this blog. It's still damn close.

But that isn't what I'm here to share with you, not really. I saw something on the way in to work the other day, something that I wish I could honestly say I hoped to never see. It's something so astonishing that I would never have imagined it ever happening, so to say I hoped never to see it would make no real sense. It's just inconceivable.

I saw a man wiping his dog's ass with a napkin.

This was wrong on many levels, some obvious and some not so much. Firstly, and obviously, he was wiping his dog's ass with a napkin. I mean… really? I can't even imagine how or why this behavior came about. It would never in a million years cross my mind to wipe my dog's ass with a… with an anything! It's a dog for fuck's sake!

Secondly, he didn't just wipe it. No no no, not by a damn sight. He wiped, glanced at the napkin, glanced at the dog's ass again, then went back in for a second pass. This implies so much that's just plain wrong with the world that I can hardly bear to go into it. It wasn't just like a casual thing, like "My dog just shat, and I have this napkin in my hand. I wipe my own ass, why not my dog's? Let's try it out!" No, I don't think so, I don't think so at all. He's done this before, as evidenced by the fact that he could tell after the first pass that his work wasn't up to snuff. He needed a do-over.

Third on the list of How Wrong Can One Man Be, we have the whole notion that a dog's ass needs wiping. This is a dog we're talking about, and note even a real dog, it was like a little toy dog that rich people have. I was watching this dog's face as his ass was wiped (I couldn't bear to look at the man's face that was doing the wiping; it would have made me cry in anger or simply go stark ape-shit crazy and beat him senseless with his own ass-cleaned mutt). This dog expected his ass-wiping. He wasn't even enjoying it like a good dog should. This wasn't man's best friend at all, this was a horrible monstrosity like Cujo or the hound of the Baskervilles in a more subtle package. The dog knew that his "master" would wipe his ass of the freshly-laid shit, and awaited it expectantly. About the only good thing I can offer on the dog's behalf is that he waited patiently for the incompetent boob to try again after failing so miserably the first time.

So there you have it children, the burden I've been carrying lo these many days. I've unburdened myself, so please go forth with my tail of humanity and do the same for yourself.