Roses are red, violets are blue. Obvious titles are lame, but this will just have to do.

Dogs Should Not be Allowed to Write Greeting Cards

If I could express
How much I care
How much I love you
And how much you mean to me
If I could put it all into words
And say it to you...

...would you let me have the last cheese puff?

~~~~~~~~~~

I am touched...

...by your hand on my bum.

~~~~~~~~~~

Because I know you can't rip my intestines out with those blunt, square little monkey teeth...

...rub my belly.

~~~~~~~~~~

If you love something
Give it cheese
If it eats the cheese
Give it more cheese
If it does not eat the cheese
It is probably dead.
(and you can eat it)
(and you can also eat the cheese)

~~~~~~~~~~

One mediocre snack is worth a thousand "good dog"s.

~~~~~~~~~~

Without you...

...I'm hungry.

And Neither Should Cats.

Because you took me in when I had nowhere else to go
Because you nurtured me and made me strong
Because you give me shelter and security
And you comfort me when I'm afraid
And you care for me when I am sick
Because you care about my happiness
And because a day doesn't go by
That you don't tell me
How much you love me.
Because of all of this, and so much more...

...I tolerate you.

Hamsters, However, Are Fine

Happy Birthday, Giant Hand!

If someone else writes the same title as you, does that mean you're soulmates?

Reading about the internet dating adventures of the always engagingly candid Kernut The Blonde (you can trust that a blog link on AAA1 Quality Blog, Ltd. will always lead to finely crafted entertainments) has me in a reflective mood. As glad as I am not to be on dating sites anymore, I gotta admit - I loved 'em when I needed 'em. I use the internet to shop for practically everything else, why not people? I kinda can't remember where you find people when they're not on the internet anymore anyway. The mall maybe? I don't know. They still have those, right? Anyway it's a whole lot easier to just dress up once and take a picture than to practice grooming and personal hygiene ev-er-y sin-gle day. Haha! You think you're flirting with some chick who's having a good hair day, don't you? Well guess what? You just called a woman who looks like she slept in a nest of drunk ferrets "cutie"!

Sucker!

Aside from the obvious advantages of being able to seduce complete strangers while wearing a dog hair covered track suit and rocking a corn chip orange smile, internet dating offers you the opportunity to assess people according to their levels of literacy. Welcome to the twenty first century, folks. If only you'd known how dependent your ability to get laid in twenty years' time would be on your retention of the basic skills they were trying to teach you in English class. You may have focused slightly less attention on carving penises into your desk with your geometry set. Remember: like attracts like. While you think you're giving some sweet thing the lust sweats with your intoxicating character mash of internet leet, you've in fact just spent the last half hour engaged in a passionate chat session with a cat napping on the keyboard of an unattended laptop. You know what's sexier than a trout pout in a bathroom mirror? Complete sentences! Add a few of those to your profile and watch the magic happen!

Of course, it's a rare person who begins and ends their dating site adventures on the same profile. Like grief and addiction, dating profiles go through a variety of stages:

Stage One: I'm not really here. Unless you're interested. Then I might be.

• Characterized by: Obscured photos, incomplete sentences, and shame.
• Typical sentence: I don't even know why I'm here, but feel free to write.
• What they mean by that: Only losers use dating sites, but I'm willing to have sex with a loser since, for some strange reason, people who aren't losers won't have sex with me.
  
• People it attracts: Admin welcoming you to the site.
  

Stage Two: Oh Boy! I'm gonna get a date!

• Characterized by: Vacation/party photos, optimism, and enough animated smiley faces to warrant a seizure disorder alert.
• Typical sentence: Friends first and then we'll see how it goes!
• What they mean by that: Okay losers, I'll play your game. Please form an orderly queue in your rush to have sex with me, and don't get your hopes up too high.
  
• People it attracts: Members who have been on the site so long you're the only person left they haven't contacted yet.

Stage Three: Oh wait. This is harder than I thought.

• Characterized by: Photos obviously taken specifically for a dating profile that attempt but fail to look like they weren't taken specifically for a dating profile. Extremely long, detailed, and often uncomfortably candid self-descriptions.
• Typical sentence: I've met a lot of great people, but I still haven't found "the one".
• What they mean by that: There seems to be some mis-communication - the people I am willing to have sex with don't appear to understand that I am currently available to have sex with them.
  
• People it attracts: Other people who don't seem to understand why you aren't wildly excited to be contacted by them either.
  

Stage Four: Stage Three: take two.

• Characterized by: Photos unabashedly taken specifically for a dating profile, often involving pets, vehicles, and other props. Self conscious attempts to seem breezy and casual.
• Typical sentence: I'm open to anything.
• What they mean by that: Hey, maybe these new people will have sex with me. They obviously enjoy parties and vacations, and surely a person with that many smiley faces wouldn't say no!
  
• People it attracts: People you talked to before and never got anywhere with who are also running out of options.

Stage Five: The death of hope.

• Characterized by: A sampling of photos from all previous stages, a main profile image ten to twenty years out of date, and poorly veiled critiques of previous internet dating experiences.
  
• Typical sentence: I AM NOT HERE TO PLAY GAMES SO IF YOU ARE LOOK ELSEWHERE.
• What they mean by that: How did these losers fail to realize how lucky they were I even put an ad on this site?
  
• People it attracts: Nobody.

Alternately, and I've advocated this approach before, you can just post your income as being over $100,000.00. Then yeah, you could pretty much just fill out your profile with a picture of your dog licking his butt and the lyrics to a toilet paper jingle and still have too many people in your shopping cart for the express checkout lane.

Title (Circle One): Miss Mrs Ms Mr Almighty

Dear Applicant,

I am pleased to confirm that you are officially being considered for the position of my god. A formal interview will be arranged at a future date, but in the meantime please complete the following questionnaire to assist us in determining whether a permanent arrangement would be mutually beneficial. Pen is fine and pencils are available on request, but we ask for purposes of building code and hygiene that neither fire or blood be used as a marking device.

A) My holidays are best observed:

1. in quiet contemplation
2. in demonstrative supplication
   
3. being emotionally vivisected at family gatherings
   
4. at the mall
   

B) Devotion to me is best expressed through

1. attendance at my places of worship
   
2. respect for creation and all living things
3. strict obedience to my laws
4. bumper stickers

C) If I ever need to get your attention, I'll

1. create a spectacular celestial event
2. smite you with whatever's handy
   
3. come to you in a dream
4. just stare at you and expect you to figure out what's bothering me

D) The worst possible sin is

1. the worship of another god
2. murder
3. sex (enjoying it)
4. sex (not enjoying it)

E) I created the universe and everything in it, therefor

1. you must worship me
2. you are a part of me
3. you are me
4. it wouldn't kill you to say thank you

F) I summoned everything into existence

1. because I was bored
2. on a dare
3. to pad my resume
   
4. by accident

G) I love everyone

1. equally
2. mostly
3. that loves me first
4. none of the above

H) Drugs are

1. a way of connecting with me
2. a way of disconnecting from me
3. too expensive
4. therefor I am

I) Reincarnation

1. enables beings to start fresh
2. enables beings to continue on
   
3. enables beings to pretend they're really Cleopatra
   
4. saves on production costs

J) I am applying for this position because

1. if you believed in me you'd already know
2. if I believed in you I'd already know
3. I made the mistake of saying you could ask me for anything
   
4. this is just a formality, right?
   

Some titles are better left unwritten.

Do-Over!

- That job interview where I yawned.

- Accelerating to get out of the way of the cop who, it turns out, did not want to get past me, but instead had been trying to pull me over. For speeding.

- Clicking on that link in that e-mail that really did look like it had been sent by a friend of mine. It had not been sent by a friend of mine.

- Deciding that the best course of action to take when it starts to get dark on an unfamiliar mountain trail is to invent a shortcut.

- That word I said into an open mic at that wedding.

- That open bar at that wedding.

- Forgetting that owls can turn their heads completely around when I was holding one while wearing a very thin shirt. And an unpadded bra.

- Not taking the dog seriously about needing to go outside.

- Half the things I did to my hair in my twenties.

- Everything I did to my waistline in my thirties.

- Puberty.

Without pain, could these titles be as beautiful?

If I were to say that the hot wax method of removing hair was for wimps, a large percentage of people would immediately grasp the implication inherent in that statement. This large percentage could accurately be described as "women", and the implication they were grasping would be that I had just purchased an Epilady.

If I were to say that I had just purchased an Epilady, a large percentage of people would have absolutely no idea what I was talking about. This large percentage could accurately be described as "sane".

Epiladies are not for the weak. Or the particularly self-loving. The Epilady is a multipurpose tool that simultaneously removes unwanted hair and punishes you for growing it in the first place. Really, it's just a glorified electric razor. Unfortunately the glory is that it's angry, gnashing army of spinning, motorized tweezers rip your hairs out by the root instead of slicing them cleanly and painlessly in half.

I do this to myself of my own free accord. I paid money for the machine that I do it to myself with. I have not had recent counseling with a mental health professional. Draw your own conclusions there. It might not be rational, it definitely hurts, and it's absolutely one of my least favorite things to do in the whole world. But it makes me feel pretty.

And also I'm allowed to eat a whole batch of cookie dough when I'm done. It's a rule!

The serial number for this title is 64119482, and I HAVE IT REGISTERED.

You can't help but reflect on your life when you're standing over a hot air vent, heating a small dog to make it poo. It's just not a scenario anybody's imagination serves up when envisioning the future, and it comes as something of a shock to find oneself in it.

Yes, the same dog that wears panties and a maxi pad. She also wears a little sweater. While remarkably effective at making her look completely stupid, it really doesn't do a whole lot to keep her warm come February. No sweater can fully compensate the fact that small, twenty pound terriers were simply not designed to withstand the elements of a harsh Canadian winter. Small twenty pound terriers were not designed to withstand the elements of a kitchen where the refrigerator door has been left ajar.

Terriers are widely considered to be the cutest members of the crustacean family.

See, twenty pound terriers have two speeds: on, and off. When she's on Allison runs hotter than a blue star sipping a Tabasco sauce smoothie. When she's off, she's but a tiny burnt ember of a dog, with not so much as a faint glow left to keep her warm while she pees.

So she doesn't finish. She just stands there, shivering and unblinking as her eyes frost over, psychically screaming into my soul to take her inside. So I do bring her in, knowing full well that she's still fully equipped to turn our flooring into the saddest place on earth.

The trick is not letting her feet touch the ground. The tail hole in her little doggy diaper allows for freedom of more than just wagging, and as soon as the blood thaws in her happy bits she's ready to finish what she started. Under no circumstance can she be allowed purchase on a squat-able surface until that's happened. To speed up the process I hold her over the heat vent so we can hurry back outside for the exciting conclusion of her two part act.

Unfortunately there's no speeding it up to the point where you don't have an opportunity to think, and the thoughts you think when heating your dog's nether regions are never very charitable. A person can't help but think unforgiving thoughts about where their life has taken them. It's bad enough I don't have a personal genital warmer, but how did I wind up being the personal genital warmer for a dog? I admit, it makes a person feel pretty pathetic. It makes a person feel like the biggest loser on the planet.

But that changed today. A stranger changed my life last night, and helped me to see my life through fresh eyes.

Somebody stole my garbage bag. Took the garbage out, and stole the bag. Yes really. Yes really times a million, because I know that's how many times the word "Really?" is going to go through your head. Somebody really did unwrap a complete stranger's garbage just to steal the bag it was packed in.

Yes, the needs of a dog's ass come before my own needs. Yes, that's pretty pathetic.

But I don't steal used garbage bags.

Thank you, stranger, for being more pathetic than a woman who is subservient to a canine's rectum. It is because you exist that I can never be the biggest loser on the planet.

Re-titled.

This week's excuses:

- I wasn't tall enough.

- I'm pretty sure that day was only 22 hours long.

- When you said "the fridge" you didn't specify "inside".

- I wasn't sure which toe.

- Beans. Or possibly an asteroid.

- They're actually serious about that whole "no pants, no service" thing.

- The Queen of England doesn't, so why should I?

- I had no idea you took me seriously, or reason to suspect anybody ever would.

- You couldn't move for clowns in there.

- I'm positive it used to be legal.

- I ran out of rollerskates.

- Didn't look flammable.

- You expect the dog to just go naked?