"Also: I cannot distinguish between the love I have for people and the love I have for dogs."
-Kurt Vonnegut, Slapstick
Because there's already so much negativity in this world, so much hate, so many marriages melting like Antarctic glaciers in this changing climate, so many oil spills and motorcycle accidents on Commonwealth Avenue, I've decided: enough writing about bitches. Let's talk about puppies.
Few are the things in this world that give me happiness. Most of them cannot be mentioned because I invoke my right to self-incrimination. The rest? Dogs. And I say this without irony.
Not just any dogs, but small, cute puppy dogs. I know that "puppy dog" is a silly redundancy but permit me this just once--it's a personal thing. "Puppy dog" rolls on the tongue more naturally and pleasurably than either "puppy" or "dog." Kinda like "The Razorback Bands." Listen: I may be the biggest, greasiest, most despicable asshole, and pervert in the world, but in the presence of puppy dogs I become the finest and gentlest of human beings, a veritable St. Francis of Assisi, a walking, drooling, stammering, blubbering yellow Care Bear surrounded by a mist of pink hearts and rainbows.
Who can resist a cute puppy?
Evil Dead II and Dead Alive (an early Peter Jackson splatter masterpiece) are among my favorite films but I believe the words "dog" and "death" should never occur in the same sentence. I urinate on Walt Disney's grave if only for Old Yeller, where a boy is faced with no other choice but to shoot his pet that has become rabid. Also, physical confrontation might ensue if you mention Marley and Me in my immediate presence. You do not want to pass by a pet shop with me in the mall because I get a kick out of ogling the poor little creatures staring helplessly at me from the back of the display glass. For a brief moment, I always have this delusion--like Robert De Niro with the young Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver--that I would save them from this cruel hell. Until I see a Booksale and totally forget about them.
It's all a matter of taste. Some people like R&B, I loathe it and would rather stick my head into a meat grinder than listen to it. Some people like Kenny G and the novels of Stephenie Meyer. I reach for the airsickness bag. Some people like comic books and skateboards. I believe in that Biblical passage saying about me speaking as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but that when I became a man I threw away all childish things. Some people blow their monthly salaries on cocaine and slutty girlfriends. I spend mine on freaking dog food and flea-and-tick sprays. Ultimately, we do not question each other's preferences.
