For Better or Worse (Cigar Smoke 4-15-10)

In this case, let’s go with worse. I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning.

I got up the other day and I went out to the kitchen and sat down at the table and I pulled a little clump of my chest hairs out and counted them. I have found that my best days occur when I have an even number of chest hairs. Well, I ended up with 13 chest hairs. Yep, I should have gone back to bed.

Anyway, I’m sitting there reading the paper, and out of the wild smoggy yonder, Marge says, “You know, I never knew that President Taft became a Supreme Court justice after he was president. Can you believe that?”

And I said, “Of course I knew that. I can’t believe you didn’t know that. What kind of woman are you? Who did I marry? When I stood there at the altar that day and agreed to that ‘for better or worse thing’ I never thought you would disappoint me like this. I can’t believe you married me under false pretenses. The fake pregnancy I could understand. But this? You’ll be hearing from my attorney.”

But before I called my lawyer, I noticed that my new dog, Archie the Airedale, was pressing his big horse head up against my leg urging me to take him for his morning walk. So I ran the Taft thing by him and he just shook his head in disbelief, too. So I told Marge I didn’t want to interfere with her learning any more new Taftinian revelations in the Times, so I was going to take Archibald for a run. I don’t think she heard me. She was lost in her educational dream world and was mumbling something about Warren G. Harding as I left. For worse had kicked for better’s butt.

Archie and I get in the car and I asked him if he could believe what he had just heard. He didn’t say anything. He just sat there like a dog. I told him my other Airedale, Hadley, the good Airedale, would have answered me. Archie still just sat there. He’s got that down pretty good.

Because Archie was disappointing me almost as much as Marge was, I decided to take him to the dog park over on Orange Grove instead of his usual walk. When we get there, we have to go in this little gated buffer neutral area before you can let your dogs out in the main area and Archie is throwing himself at the fence in a fit of rage. He’s growling and snarling at the other dogs on the other side of the fence, and mothers are picking up their kids and guys are wishing they had brought their firearms in with them.

I wasn’t quite sure what to do, so I said, “What the hell. Let’s see what these so-called dogs are made of.” And I opened the gate and Archie rushed out there and people gasped. And what did vicious Archie do? Vicious Archie smelled more butts than a proctologist. That’s what Archie did.

I was relieved. I really didn’t want to have to deal with Archie killing a miniature poodle while I was still digesting Marge’s Taft remarks. And it was kind of cool out there in the main dog park of life. Archie just ran his semi-mangy self all over that place. He was doing that thing where they run alongside of each other and bump their shoulders, and he was hauling ass, baby. His Airedale life was good. So was mine. I could just stand there and watch and not have to do any physical exercise of any kind. And be a good master without exerting any energy. I’m trying to patent this.

Well, Archie ran his big canine furball butt for about a half-hour and was panting harder than Paris Hilton on YouTube. And I was panting just thinking of Ms. Hilton.

When I stopped panting, I started talking to some woman as I watched my dog embarrass himself, and I mentioned that I had just taken Archie to the vet and it had cost me more than $200 for the vet to determine that my big-headed dog had too much gas in his stomach. I said, “Can you believe I dropped two large ones because my dog would NOT fart?” The woman did not respond. She just walked away. Quickly walked away.

When I got back home, I opened the door, and yelled out to Marge, “Hi Honey, your soon-to-be-former-husband and your non-farting dog are home.” She didn’t answer. Probably too excited learning that Millard Fillmore only had one testicle or something.