MY FRIEND, LINDA « The Standup Thinker

My friend, Linda, owns a dog. She calls her property, "My best friend!" On the first day, when the dog mistook the rug for a patch of grass, Linda shoved her best friend's nose into its own excrement, slapped the animal sharply on the behind, then dragged it outside by the skin of its back and raged, "Crap here! Not there!"

"Why did you do that, Linda?"

(Brightly) "Why, that teaches the dog not to crap on the rug!"

Linda prides herself on what she calls, Teaching Spot New Tricks. "Down Spot! Fetch!" She prides herself on teaching the animal to perform mindless circus stunts. "No, Spot, no cookie till you roll over!" She often brags, "I trained Spot to do that!" conveniently forgetting that Spot, because of Linda, has no access to food of any sort, not to mention cookies, and thus has no choice but to obey.

"Wow, Linda, that's quite a best friend you got there."

Linda often makes reference to "The dog's life." She believes that dogs have it easy. She once pointed to her dog lazing on the couch. In a rapture of whimsey, she purred, "Ah, the dog's life.." She often jests, "He just lays about all day while I work to feed and shelter him. What a lazy mutt!" Linda often makes light of her dog's relationship to the tether. "He loves the leash! When I pull it out, he hops and jumps and goes nuts with joy! Ah, the dog's life!"

What Linda forgets in her thoughtless contemplation over the supposed benefits of "The dog's life" is that Spot's days are spent in a solitary confinement cell called Linda's home in which he has only three choices: to play with a few rank rubber toys, to eat, or to sleep on the couch. And all with the added inconvenience of holding his urine and excrement painfully until his master returns. And, were he to reject these gifts? Were he to escape Linda's clutch by venturing outside on his own? He would be hunted down by the "Humane" Society and either returned to his owner, farmed out to another owner, or "put down," meaning: murdered by lethal injection.

"Wow, Linda, that's quite a best friend you got there."

"Yepperoonee! I love my hot diggity dog!"

Why does Linda call Spot her "Hot Diggity Dog?" Because Spot is a dachshund. A long hot-dog shaped animal with short stumpy legs. A creature whose body has been genetically modified, its spine artificially elongated by scientists working under the auspices of businesses eager to meet the demands of dog owners who enjoy purchasing animals whose spines have been disfigured and made vulnerable by man's ingenuity.

"Wow, Linda, that's quite a best friend you got there."

"Yepperoonee! I love my wiener dog!"

This entry was posted on May 18, 2011 at 5:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.