Real Life Review - My Day

Most people, when you tell them about your trials and tribulations, are usually more than willing to say, 'I'm sorry that happened to you.' But if you were really honest with yourself, like way down deep inside, you might have to confess that the first thing you really think - like, the thing you think that you never tell anyone because you don't want people to think you're an inhuman bastard - is 'I'm glad that didn't happen to me.'

So allow me to tell you about some stuff, and then you can be glad it didn't happen to you.

My wife likes dogs. She really, really likes them. More than makes any sense - we have five dogs.

Well, we had five dogs.

One dog - we'll call her Jasmine, because that's her name - is an amazing guard dog. She loves the family, would never hurt any of us, and would lay down her life for any of us. She's big and tough and scary, and if she starts growling at you with her back up, you would be wise to back away real slow.

Another dog - Waffle - is a pain in the ass. She's neurotic and irritating and chases the cats. She also bites people, and would probably just as soon see us all dead so she could eat us. She's a pretty dog, though, and so my wife likes her.

One other dog is Bandit. We got Bandit before we even had kids - and they're teenagers now. He's older than dirt, has arthritis and joint pain and wicked bad gas. But he was a great dog for a long time - good protector, good guardian, loyal friend, all that crap you want in a dog. Plus he's like 80 pounds, so people are scared of him. Since he started getting pretty old, he's really slow, but he's still a member of the family.

Jasmine hates Waffle with a passion unmatched by the heat of the sun. Jasmine would like nothing better than to rip out Waffle's heart and show it to her before she died. So we have to keep Jasmine and Waffle separated, and that's not always easy, and it's got Jasmine really depressed and a little crazy.

A lot crazy, actually. Yesterday while my wife was taking the kids to school, Jasmine attacked Bandit. We're not sure why, but when my wife came in the house, it looked like someone had been filming a cheesy 80s horror movie. There was blood everywhere - pooled on the floor, smeared on the furniture, splattered on the walls. And Bandit was bleeding out in the kitchen.

I rushed home, we got Bandit to the vet, and he went directly into surgery.

He never came out of the surgery.

So now I've got to break someone's heart. My wife loves Jasmine, but we can't exactly hang onto a dog that kills other dogs. My son loves Waffle, and for the life of me I can't figure out why. I loved Bandit, and now he's off to be cremated and returned to us in a cedar box with a brass plaque. Because I live in a crazy house, we're not taking any of them to the pound - they have to go to a no-kill shelter, where Jasmine can enjoy a long life of not being put down like a crazed lunatic killer who tears up old dogs because they get too close to her breakfast.

My wife is depressed, my daughter is crying, and my son is mad enough to bury a hammer in my skull for getting rid of Waffle.

And to top it all off, today I locked my keys in the truck. I had to bust the lock with a screwdriver to get home from work. It was humid as hell and I dripped sweat right through a really nice dress shirt, and cut skin off a knuckle, and now I can't lock the truck.

It should probably be pretty obvious by now that I'm not writing a review tonight. I don't feel like playing games, and I don't feel like making witty quips about the regular stream of dross and garbage that flows through my office and clutters up my storage unit. Sorry I can't entertain you with a great review of the most recent unnecessary distraction that Fantasy Flight put in a cardboard box, but I'll be back Monday night with something that is either hilarious and irreverent or just boring and crappy (or somewhere in between).

So there you go. I give you my full permission to think, 'holy crap, am I glad that didn't happen to me!' You can even say it. If it had happened to you, that's what I would be thinking. And don't worry about me - I'll get through this just fine, with the help of lots of cigarettes and distilled grain alcohol.