Ethan: ….Because I know you don’t actually like pickles that’s why.
Francis: Ok… ahem, in a world, where I don’t care.
Simon: Lets get sandwiches!
Francis: Hey look, the pizza man…
Ethan: I’m NOT giving you pizza…I don’t want to clean that up…
Francis: But it’s my treasures…
Ethan: Far from it.
Simon: I want a sandwich but with extra sandwich…
Francis: Hey,when is supper around here?
Ethan: you already ate.
Francis: what about seconds and snacks and desserts?
Ethan: Francis, I don’t know how to tell you, but you’re fat.
Francis: Lies! But, I am hungry.
Ethan: you’re on a diet
Francis: abuse! 
Francis: This is my winter coat. . . It’s to protect me from predators.
Ethan: does it protect you from diabetes?
Ethan: Ok boys, I need my taste testers!
Simon: I’m ready! 
Garf: I call dibs! Din dins !
Lindz: not if I catch you for hugs! 
Simon: Hey dad, dad, do you mind to tell mom, this is guys time. We have to test the food.
Garf: hey man, does warden, ahem, I mean, LADY, boss you around like she does me?
Ethan: hey look! Smothered chicken quesadillas! 
Ethan: Ok filthy fellas, Let’s go to the bathroom before bed.
Simon: ok but you have to go with us, because dog-nappers…
Ethan: how many times do I have to tell you, don’t watch true crime with mom while I’m gone.
L: He’s my protector.
Ethan: He’ll be the first to hide.
Garf: I don’t have to go to the bathroom. All my poop is gone.
Ethan: are you sure? You’re positive? It’s 20 degrees and we are not coming back out here.
Garf: I’m positive.
(Inside)
Garf: Ok time for Din Dins!
Ethan: Heck no! Food is gone, it’s time for bed. 
Garf: But what about midnight snacks? Or second Din Din?
Ethan: I think you’ll manage for one night.
Garf: Hey, hey,
Ethan: What?
Garf: I have to go to the bathroom now.
Simon: Dear doggie journal, I have been stranded for three years…
Ethan: I’ve only been gone for a few hours…
Simon: It’s been a year of rain. And flood. There’s hardly any food, there have been stealings. Our kitchen is gone!
Ethan: Hey, I told you We’re remodelling it…
Simon: I am keeping cheeses and breads.
Garf: Wait, is that what was under the couch? Because you should go shopping…
I meant to work out this year. It was on my very secret list of things to do. 
But then, I took a nap without setting an alarm and I woke up, and it was almost March.
Let’s face it, I’ve got to start working on my winter body, if the year is going by this fast,
The flu is going around, that’s the real reason I’m not going to the gym. I’m a complete germ freak. I basically disinfect the entire gym when I go.
Do you realize just how difficult it is to get cold medicine these days?
Back in the day, you had a cough or back ache,you could send your five year old neighbor to the doctor, who was also the local postman, and grocer. To get a bottle of absinthe and some opium. Because you had to keep chopping lumber.
Now?
I’ve got to go down there in person and show my ID and sign my name and give them my birth certificate and mortgage papers just to get some crap medicine that won’t even work.
What happens when we die? Do I have to verify my identity then too? Show you my ID? Make sure I am the person spoken of. That you are expecting for this reserved hole in the ground.
Don’t worry, if we can’t verify, we’ve got an unmarked road between two county roads, just behind the Sunday school, where we will just dump your body. What could go wrong.
I really do believe we are getting stronger as we grow up though.
Not really.
Let’s face it. We’ve all shattered those expectations. If it was a glass ceiling? We couldn’t even clean it, let alone crack it.
We’ve taken so many antibiotics, we can’t even get over a hangover and a bad date. Let alone a real virus.
Used to we had people like Doc Holliday, they’d show up to work coughing blood and they’d still out work you. Now, if there’s even a chance of mild discomfort, I’m going to need to take off for about six months leave. Turns out I can’t handle constipation like I used to. The doctor agrees as well.
We are just not built the same. I don’t know what happened, but it’s there.
And I’m trapped between these two age groups. Maybe it’s because I have been working since I was 6 years old. It’s all I know how to do. Maybe I didn’t have the same childhood as other people but at least I’ve worked to get where I am, and I’ve never asked anyone for help or a handout,you know?
I just find it funny how, When everything was unregulated, unsupervised, we still had more pride and work ethic.
Now, we have better supervision, regulation, and honestly probably for the better. But we’re like a bunch of degenerates. We want a miracle pill. You know, like a re-do button.
You remember when you were little and you could just yell redo!
And get a second chance?
That’s what we’re after.
Something to cancel out the years of bad decisions and choices that have stacked up against us.
But what do I know? I’m not a doctor or anything, I just know how to laugh at myself. Now pass me another Beer.
I’m typing this and Garf is sitting between my legs, demanding that I scratch his back. Simon is sitting beside me, supporting my writing endeavor.
Shelter pets are the greatest fans, you will never have a better fan than a shelter pet.
In their eyes you can do no wrong, They’re the best version of Fox News fans, or Nixon, I mean Trump supporters, this ship may be going down, but we still love our guy, he’s the best guy. At my best health, I’m the best guy, but even at my worst , beer gut or crohn’s flare, I’m still the best guy. if I want to work out or go for runs, they’re all about that. if I want to do Sunday naps, they’re excited about that too.
I can do a mean Michael Jackson, Billie Jean impersonation, Some marriages hold sex and finances over heads to get things done, I hold this.
I was practicing, you know, in doors, away from people, so I could later feel just how old I am, and attempt to remain cool and aloof to my wife, extra snuggle points.
But like Homeschoolers, our two welfare, stay at home, shelter dogs…
Simon and Garfunkel, they just sat there watching the whole thing, like they had never seen me before….
I am now, the coolest person in not just my dogs circle of friends, but their lives. I don’t even really care what my wife thinks anymore, I just want to be the kind of cool that my dogs think I am…
You may be disappointed to find – but I was originally AGAINST introducing dogs into this paradise Love Boat. I was afraid that, like children, it would just alter everything about our lives.
Turns out, I wasn’t wrong.
But then I started walking Simon, and he in his eight week old self, was doing crazy things like getting his face stuck in Arby’s sandwich sleeves.
And then I started writing about him- you know, just to write something, because I had writers block, but as it turns out, walking Simon every day, helped my depression and anxiety, and having your own personal fan helps your self esteem. And I do mean personal fan, like, if you went to the bathroom, he would be right there, staring at you and then get excited when you were done. You don’t mean to, but you get excited too, like yeah, that is amazing, modern plumbing, I don’t have to go outside in the grass and hide from traffic and people I work with, like you, suddenly this Monday isn’t so bad.
And writing 248 + short stories about a dog and his life. Is world building and still art. And Coincidentally, writing. Which destroys writers block.
You may not be creating or succeeding in the ways you set out to, but you are still progressing and moving forward.
Now, these two dogs are still silly and awkward, Simon is super excited and will ask a ton of questions like “have you seen sticks before? You probably have, the other day I dug the biggest hole, it was great.” But he is mellowing out as he gets older.
Garfunkel is already old, but he loves to get attention, and he is strange in his own kind of street smart way, you may over hear him convincing Simon that the earth is only as big as our small town and that if Simon goes any further he will just fall – OFF like a video game character walking out of screen.
Or smaller less complicated things, like grass isn’t colored, but if it were it’s definitely colored by crayons, over night, by trolls, and that’s where you get dew, from the sweat of their work.
And he should know, because he’s practically SEEN it.
And Simon not knowing any better, will believe him, until he asks me about it. And well, that all depends on what mood I’m in. 
