They got a dog

Last night, while I was counting the minutes until CSI, I suddenly heard loud hysterical wailing and yelping coming from next door. Yes, that next door. Chris and I exchanged worried glances and Warp began having a doggy meltdown complete with whining, gasping and rolling around on the floor because we wouldn't let him outside to investigate.

I seriously debated whether or not to even go look. "What on earth is that noise." I shouted to Chris. He responded by glancing incredulously at me over the tops of his glasses. "You aren't the least bit curious? I'm going to check it out." I said more to myself than to him. I had to see where all the noise was coming from without appearing to be interested or concerned. My biggest problem: I couldn't see what was happening from the window. I was going to have to go out there if I wanted to find out. Doing my absolute best to appear disinterested and nonchalant, I opened the back door and stepped out onto the porch. Warp of course raced out after me and I practically had to throw myself down the back steps to catch him before he streaked past. When I looked across the yard here is what I saw:

All the neighbor children, with their friends, were jumping on the 15 foot wide trampoline. Ascending from the center of the throng of children, a teeny tiny puppy dog. This little guy couldn't have weighed more than 5 lbs. They were all jumping in unison which caused the dog to repeatedly catapult skyward. Each time, he let out a series of terrified yelps and wails.

I completely forgot about appearing disinterested and nonchalant. I stood there clutching my wiggling, screaming dog with my mouth hanging open staring at this poor puppy. Suddenly, all the children, turned and started yelling and waving at us; calling for Warp to join in the fun. Uh, no. I went back inside, leaning against the door once it was closed behind me. Chris looked over at me. "Well?"

"They got a dog" I replied.

"Oh no" He whispered.

Nocturnal Knock Knock Jokes

Any one who has spent more than, say, 20 minutes with me has heard my favorite joke. Anyone who has lived with me has probably banned me from telling it because they have heard it so many times. I learned this joke from an enthusiastic 3 year old in one of the swimming classes I used to teach. It's a really good one:
Me: Knock Knock
You: Who's there?
Me: Impatient Cow
You: Impatient Cow Wh (Me: MOOOOOO!) o?

Now, until recently I thought this was the funniest knock knock joke ever but then, last night at approximately 12:15 AM the greatest knock knock joke of all time occurred to me (yes that's right I make up knock knock jokes). Chris was asleep but this was not important. I woke him up by shaking him vigorously.
Me: Chris! Pssssst! Wake up!
Chris: Mmmmph?
Me: Knock Knock (I am now shaking with anticipation and snickering)
Chris: You have got to be kidding me.
Dog: Loud groan
Chris: See even the dog doesn't want to hear the impatient cow joke. I am going to train him to groan just like that every time you say knock knock.
Me: actually that would be really funny, how do you think we would teach him to do that? I mean, we would have to somehow get him to associate the words knock knock wi...
Chris: Oh. My. God. It is 12:30. Is it *absolutely* critical that we discuss dog training right now?
Me: Yeah, sorry you are right.
Chris: Thank you . (Rolling over)
Me: I'll just tell you the joke and we can talk about teaching the dog to groan on command after that. Knock Knock
Chris: *loud dramatic sigh* Who is there?
Me: (with great zeal and taking care to clearly enunciate) exploding cow
Chris: exploding cow wh( Me: BOOM!) o?

There was a long pause, then he started to laugh.
Moments later:
Chris: Knock Knock
Me: (gleefully) woooo! Who is there??
Chris: Cow
Me: Cow who?
Chris: Cows don't say who they say moo!
Me: Hysterical laughter and then a loud thud
Chris: What was that?
Me: I fell out of bed.
Dog: Loud groan

Nearly Eaten

Last night I headed out on my road bike for a long ride through the countryside around Fennville. After I had been riding about 40 minutes I made a quick stop to get a drink of water and tinker with my iPod. I always try to stop at or near the top of a hill so that I can use the momentum I've built up going down hill to get back up the other side of the hill. You see the area where I live, by Michigan standards, is quite hilly. (By BB standards, it is roughly equivalent to biking up Everest.) I had already biked up several hills and being in a particularly zealous mood, I decided to continue on and bike farther than usual. Why not?

I will tell you why not:
Once I got going again and got to the bottom of the hill I heard a strange sharp noise coming from behind me. It was difficult to hear it over the blaring iPod but I could definitely hear something. I looked in the rear view attached to my handlebars. Looming behind me in the distance was a gigantic set of white chompers affixed inside the mouth of a 150 lb yellow lab. The dog was barking and galloping at full tilt towards me. "Uh, this isn't good." Then, I looked from the rear view mirror back to the road, the hill in front of me rose up from the ground at what seemed to be a ludicrous incline. "I am going to get eaten."

I started to pedal faster, halfway up the hill a quick check in the rear view revealed the dog was gaining on me. The strange thing was even though he was barking and showing some serious teeth, the tail was flying back and forth like a metronome. "I think he is enjoying this! Maybe he just wants to play." The dog growls and speeds up. "Maybe not."

The dog was gaining on me, near the top of the hill he got close enough that I'm pretty sure he was drooling on my back tire. The barking was right behind me and I was just hoping that once it got to the top there would be a nice steep slope on the other side so I could pick up some speed and get away from this Cujo wanna-be. Just as I crested the top of the hill I checked the rear view. I could not see the dog, which meant he was in my blind spot and less than a few feet away. As I started down the other side of the hill, which was mercifully, very steep, the dog dropped back unable to keep up with my screamin' fast Huffy road bike. He re appeared in my rear view mirror as he slowed to a trot and stopped barking.

As I road away I turned to see him standing halfway down the hill with his tongue hanging down to his knees panting and tail still wagging. "That was a great workout" I thought to myself "but tomorrow, I am going a different way!"