In The Doghouse!

At most houses, the order of prominence starts at the top and goes down from there. First it’s the wife, then the kids. That’s usually followed by the husband and last of all, the dog. That’s not always the case in the last two. Numbers three and four have been known to switch places on occasion.

Husbands..and Other Dumb Animals!

You can send your dog to obedience school but there is no similar institution to train your husbands. Therefore it is usually left up to the wife. Admittedly it isn’t an easy task and so it requires much patience. That’s not meant to imply that you can’t meet with limited success in your endeavors, as long as you don’t get your hopes up too high. But it can be done. After all, they can teach monkeys and other simple primates to do amazing things because they too have moderate levels of intelligence and are great imitators. Of course, with husbands as with other dumb animals, not every one of them can be taught. Some just won’t or can’t learn. With your misfortune, you probably got one of those.

Pavlov, Skinner, and other psychologists have studied dogs and rats in an attempt to understanding human behavior. If you too are interested in observing animals to get a clue to the male psyche, I would suggest directing your efforts to something closer to mankind. Since monkeys are purported to be our closest cousins, perhaps a trip to the zoo would be more profitable. A word of caution, when you go, watch out for the one that sits sullen in the corner and throws poop at the spectators. Then remember, considering the basic genetic material, you don’t have much to work with!

Estro-Genius: Dealing with the Estrogen-entangled Gender

It’s amazing how quickly ‘us’ guys can get into trouble. After 20 plus years of marital ‘bliss’, I feel an obligation to share my experience amassed from the many conflicts I have survived over the years.

My first advice to the 'newbie' is to beware...of loaded questions, like when you’re minding your own business and suddenly your wife asks you, “Honey?!! Does this dress make me look fat?” Now if warning flags haven’t popped up all over the place, you are indeed a rank novice in marital entanglements or a totally clueless male. Don’t be fooled by her casual demeanor or the nonchalant tone in her voice, you have just been lured into a major entrapment, from which you will not escape unscathed. Getting into a scrap with your wife is a no-win situation, sort of like falling naked into thicket of thorns or bear-hugging a cactus, or getting stuffed into a gunny sack full of porcupines. The end result is the same. You can’t get out of it quick enough and you will not emerge unscathed. Now, back to the dreaded question. No matter how you answer her, you are neck deep in deep doo-doo. Here’s my advice as a veteran of repeatedly uttering stupid retorts without thinking, immediately clutch your eyes with both hands and fall to the ground screaming, ‘my eyes, my eyes! I can’t see!’ She may not fall for your clever ruse but at least it will distract her long enough for you to get safely away.

I knew I was in trouble the first time we pulled in the parking lot at Wal-Mart. Like an idiot, I was driving. She didn’t like the way I went down the aisles. “You’re going the wrong way, she screeched!” Evidently, I had managed to brazenly breach all protocols of parking lot etiquette midway through the first lap. Now I’m wondering, what’s the big deal? I hadn’t run over anyone? I was oblivious...and she was fuming!

But sometimes you just gotta’ be a man. Now I’m a pretty patient guy but one day I’d had enough of her attitude...so I drew myself to my full height, threw out my chest past my mid-section, and told her just how I felt about the way she’d been treating me. I unloaded for about ten minutes until I was red-faced and out of breath, then I stopped. After a prolonged pause I stood there with my arms crossed in bold defiance—the silence was deafening! You could have heard a pin drop! Thank goodness because that’s about the time I heard the car pull up. By the time she opened the door and barged in, I’d already jumped out from in front of the mirror. Fortunately for me, quick thinking and my survival instincts averted a near tragedy, mine! She glared at me. I could tell she suspected something. What was all that hollering, she demanded! I could hear you all the way from outside? Nothing dear, I said meekly. Lucky for her, I’d gotten it out of my system.

In any conflict, there are the rules of engagement. In case, you haven’t figured it out yet, let me spell it out for you in simple enough terms even a husband can understand; if you win, you lose. If you’re right, you’re wrong...or at least not too smart. Don’t look at it as failure or as an inglorious retreat, think of it as a tactical maneuver to the rear.

Ever heard the expression, they ‘fight like cat’s and dogs’? Now if you think about the root cause of most marital conflicts, it’s because the basic differences between men and women. This is a good analogy. Women are like cats and men are more like dogs. Think about it! One minute they’re purring, the next they’re hissing and clawing, then they’re finicky or indifferent. A study in contrast and complexity...aloof, indifferent, distant, graceful. Men? We’re sort of like a puppy, all happy and oblivious...and then we pee all over the carpet!

Never forget this...love is like a two-way street so, if you’re not careful, you may get run over in both directions. There are some things you just can’t do very well by yourself, like trying to row a boat with only one oar. No matter how hard you try, you only go around in circles. Then some things are best done alone. Marriage is sort of like two people trying to drive one car at the same time. Two stubborn people with their hands on the steering wheel at the same time, things can wind up in the ditch pretty quick!

That’s about all I have to say about that. You’re on your own now!

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We Have A Dog

We have a dog, or to be more precise, a four-legged, fur-covered food processor (food goes in one end and out the other).

Several considerations have prompted me to reexamine its purported reputation as mans’ best friend. Having a dog, like everything else, has become more complicated since the first canine showed up at a cave looking for a handout. Take veterinary care, for instance. Our pets are entitled to a more sophisticated level of health care than existed in the entire world at the turn of the century. Then there are other modern innovations for dogs, such as training devices like electronic dog shock collars (currently not available for children). The difference is apparent even in something so trivial as dog food. From bones and table scraps to a modern day fare of a myriad of meat-by-products blended in a carbohydrate paste designed by a team of Nobel prize-winning nutritional dieticians (which strongly resemble reformulated table scraps). To illustrate the extreme that the consumer public has attained to, one cat food boasts that it protects a cat's urinary tract health. So far I am unable to get concerned about a cat's urinary tract health although it appears that many cat owners must be. You may have noticed that there is as yet no counterpart claim made to dog owners which leads me to believe that they are not as totally self absorbed as compared to pet owners of the feline persuasion. Surely this paranoia is the climax of Madison Avenue's cavalcade of the preposterous and the paltry and deserves a berth right up there with “ring-around-the-collar” and “the heartbreak of psoriasis.”

Perhaps what perplexes me most is why this slobbering beast occupies such an exalted plateau. Anyone who has ever observed a dog sleeping or laying around most of the day has surely wondered at the expression, "working like a dog". The irony of this analogy is only eclipsed by, "sleeping like a baby". What has the canine done to merit such undeserved esteem other than drool excessively and wag its tail with an insipid look on its face.

Rather than possess any attributes of a redeeming value, the notorious mutt does have an entourage of annoying vices of which I will now enumerate. Any list would be sure to include barking all night, chewing on footwear and furnishings, digging holes in the yard and redistributing the contents of trash bags. Most distressing is the animal's unsanitary toilet habits (the furry beast is constantly manufacturing doggie-doo and indiscriminately placing it around the yard). This self-appointed washer-of-tires and waterer-of-fire hydrants is notorious for one other flagrant vice, they chase cats, which may explain why cats are prone to urinary tract disorders in the first place.

MOUTH WIDE OPEN

With the advent of modern technology, anyone with a computer can write or speak whatever is on their 'mind'. We call this, “freedom of speech”. It’s also constitutionally protected. In case you are unfamiliar with the constitution, the founding fathers instituted the right of free speech to protect those who are prone to utter really crude and senseless remarks.

At one time, speech had a very specific purpose, that being the primary means of communication between two or more individuals. As such, it was critical to our survival. Now it’s just something to occupy us until the commercial is over. Fortunately for the human race, we were able to construct language in order to freely converse among ourselves. The only other possible mode of communication would have been to simply read each other’s minds, which would have resulted in the immediate annhilation of humankind. Imagine how long your marriage would have lasted if you both knew what the other was thinking! "Til’ death do us part" may have been much quicker than we would expect under those circumstances. Immediately after they invented speech, someone had to invent tact. Tact is when you actually think before you open your mouth and say something really thoughtless!

As with any right, there always those who abuse it. You can easily recognize them because they are usually the ones who are the first to scream that their rights have been violated. They do this just after they have violated someone else’s rights. Some people ought to keep their mouth shut, it’s just not 'constitutional' to tell them.

All through history, there have been those who have attempted to impose restrictions on any view that is contradictory to their own by any means necessary, including force. But that’s enough about tyranny and oppression, otherwise known as the institution of marriage.

While the right to free speech is guaranteed by the constitution, the ability to say something intelligent, however, is not.