MY GERIATRIC DOG NEEDS HER CRACK

I'm so mad at my dog.

Granted...she's 11 years old ... that's like 212 years in dog age or something ... so she can be alotted a certain amount of crankiness or incredibly bad driving at her age.

But I'm just about ready to take her to the pound and say "Gas her up, dude."

Every morning for the past several years, she's served as my 4 a.m. alarm clock.

At 4 a.m., she comes to my side of the bed and scratches it, telling me to get up and get her those 4 a.m. treats that she's been waiting all night for.

She gets an Alpo Bar-B-Q Chicken Stick and a Beggin' Strip every morning at 4 a.m.

The Beggin' Strip is also known as "Puppy Crack" in our house, because Maggie will do ANYTHING for a Beggin' Strip. She's addicted to those bastards. Maybe they have doggie nicotine in them, I'm not sure. But every time you go to the kitchen she follows you and blocks your path back out of the kitchen until you give her a Beggin' Strip.

She's a smart dog. An incredibly FAT dog ... but smart.

Now then...

Andy has a 4 a.m. wake-up call too.

He gets fidgety at 4 a.m. every morning for the past couple of days.

He tries to get his fingers in his mouth to suck them, but he's horribly inept at this simple action.

Especially when he's half awake.

So every morning, I'm awaken by his frustrated grunting as he lays there with his eyes closed, jabbing away at his mouth and trying to catch a finger or thumb in there.

He always fails.

Soooo...my job is to run in to Andy's room, pat him on the ass until he falls back asleep, go get Maggie her two treats, then come out here and recap my f'n day for you people.

In other words ... Maggie has been pushed back to being number two on the list of priorities.

... And her hairy fat ass ain't accepting this demotion with graceful aplomb.

So about 20 minutes ago, I'm patting the boy's ass and trying desperately to get a pacifier in his mouth.

He's fidgeting so much I nearly poke his eye out with the pacifier.

Meanwhile, Maggie's grunting and sneezing and rolling around and scratching things like she's DYING so that I will take my attention away from Fidgetty Boy, run out to the kitchen and grab her two snacks, toss them her fat way, so that she can be content.

Every grunt she tosses out makes Andy's eyes open, which means I'm about to have an awoke baby at 4 a.m., which is something I DON'T want.

So I hiss at Maggie to "GET OUT!!" Meaning ... the room.

She won't leave. She starts doing her "C'mon Dad...I'm hungry" growl.

Andy's starting to get louder.

Maggie's starting to get louder.

Andy starts to cry.

Maggie starts to wag her tail against Andy's door so that a loud THUMP!THUMP!THUMP! permeates the room.

Andy cries louder because the noise level is getting louder.

I give up, pick the kid up, put him in our bed with the wife where he passes right back out again, get Maggie her treats and give her a stern lecture on the fact that she's no longer "the baby" in the house.

Maggie doesn't care. She just wants that damned Beggin' Strip, thankyouverymuch.

Now ... 20 minutes later, everyone's asleep but me.

This....is the life of me.

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Had a totally uninteresting day yesterday.

I listened to my co-workers as they bitched about each other.

Went to lunch with Mattie Gee at Tony Roma's. It was only the second time I've ever been there, and it was really pretty damned good.

Tony Roma's is famous for their ribs.

So I had a burger.

Always living on the edge, I am.

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Came back to the office and Mattie Gee left immediately for the day to go do other work on the side that he gets paid more money for, so I couldn't really blame him for that.

Except he left me alone with my drunk-assed boss in the room.

The boss was surfing the net, trying to find out if any of his lottery tickets were winners.

They weren't.

But due to his complete ignorance in navigating the web ... it took him over an hour to find a lottery number site to help him out.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting there with my thumb up my ass, waiting to use the Internet machine so I can surf the net to help pass the time.

Finally he gets off the machine and I take over and just ... goof off for several hours.

Then Duncan Loser comes back to the office.

Duncan is our latest sales guy who's desperately trying to fit in with the rest of the employees, but he's trying too hard.

He and I say hello and make very limited small talk. But there's something about him I just don't care for.

Basically, he's a sales guy. And most sales guys are sleazy fucks.

....That's my humble opinion anyway.

So he sees I'm on the internet, enjoying myself in a quiet manner as I surf the sites I WANT to surf.

"Have you seen atomic dog dot com?" he asks.

"No Duncan Loser, I haven't," I said, while I kept reading E! online.

"It's great!! They've got a film of a hamster in a microwave!!"

Oh sweet Jesus, Duncan ... what the hell are we waiting for, you big loser, you??

So I type in www.atomicdog.com

There was no film of hamsters in microwaves.

So Duncan takes a seat and starts calling around town on his handy dandy cell phone that doesn't ring...it plays SONGS instead of ringing.

Oh my gosh! Modern day miracles never cease to amaze me!

At this point, I really just wanna kick Duncan Loser in the shins and make him go away. It had been peaceful and calm in my office for several hours until he came back there.

FINALLY, he gets hold of his wife who says it's www.atomfilms.com.

Oh.

Yes, I've seen that, Duncan.

But it was SOOOOOOO not funny to me, that I hadn't retained the information of actually seeing a cartoon of a hamster in a microwave, forgive me.

Well...Duncan HAS to see this film. I guess it's like Andy rooting around for his thumb at 4 a.m....HE HAS TO HAVE IT.

So we go to the site and it takes him forever to find the film of the hamster.

We end up not finding it, because Duncan's as clueless about surfing the web as my blotto boss is.

I keep saying "I've seen the film, Duncan, I've seen the film, Duncan, I've seen the film, Duncan."

But he doesn't give up.

This guy gets on my nerves so much, that I make up an imaginary press conference that I have to be at in ten minutes, get in my car and get the hell out of the office.

It's 4:45 a.m.

I bet that loser is STILL searching for that film.

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I watched "Ed" last night and started to write my recap for Mighty Big TV but hit a mental road block about 30 minutes into the recap.

So I went to bed, vowing to awaken and commence working on the recap.

Instead, I'm here bitching about my dog and co-workers.

Yeah ... I've got priorities alright.

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Oh yeah ... I heard from a few of you who tried the "Fuck 'em?" game at red lights yesterday after I wrote about it in yesterday's entry.

It's nice to know my sleazy influence is permeating your psyches.

I officially rawk.

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Alright...whether or not this malarkey fills up the alotted space or even if you think you got gypped from a lame entry ... I've got paying work awaiting me.

I love you all so much that if I caught a glimpse of you driving past me at a red light, I'd respond with a resounding "YES!!"

I would.

Yes, I would.

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

What was your favorite album of the '90s and why?