Nurture gone wrong

He only feels good when he's under a dog, though he does not own a dog. Something about the the musky odor and the fur in his mouth comforts him. He slips a fifty to the manager of the pound to take Fuji or Roger or Gracie in the back room painted olive green, where he feeds them human-grade chicken jerky from underneath.

"No sex," the manager always says.

He stands five foot nine, muscular, black hair combed sometimes into a pompadour, sometimes shaved close to his perfectly smooth head, depending on whether he courts a Newfoundland or a Pug.

His pound-wear is the same gray sweatsuit because hair sticks to it. He doesn't shave so he can lick his moustache and taste the (potential) pet long after the encounter.

"The old dogs are the best," he tells me, "because there's none of that kicking and biting, just sweet smothering goodness."

Telling the few friends he has left that they must view him as a dog to generate his creative impulses, he whines and slides on his stomach to lick their feet. I step on his head or kick him lightly, but this does not discourage him. He must get a tongue full of foot before he can go home and write his financial planning column for a major daily newspaper.

His wife, a vacuous brunette who seems to be under the influence of intense g-forces, does not know about the dogs. That is, she does not know on a conscious level. We appease her with talk of hors d'oeuvres (usually crabcakes) and the latest Tori Amos single. One can only imagine the explosive properties of her husband's alleged deviance from the norm combined with Earth's gravity magnified several times.

He is completely normal and completely crazy, an example of nurture gone wrong. His mother did not have many dishes, and thought it appropriate to feed Baby from a chow bowl with a cartoon puppy on the bottom as a reward. For additional fun, she would add coins to the meal and let him keep them if not swallowed. Nature did nothing wrong, but is this what God had in mind?
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Charlos and the Palindrome

I was hoping to write a post about Carlos Zambrano's no-hitter. This was ruined by a Preston Wilson single to right about as much as Cindy Crawford was ruined by a single mole to the left. The Chubs beat those sick Texas sprawlers by an eight-count. Those Lone-Star bastards disgust me because they expand and expand and if anyone messes with them, they carry loaded guns in their truck. They kill. They execute those who are different and perhaps weak.

Instead, how about this:

The palindrome is wonderful because it is the same backwards as forwards. It has no opposite, no dark side. How many of me have battled and succumbed to aggressive public drunkenness, fear of the poor, and misogeny only to realize that my demons are myself? What if I equaled my demons, and no one could tell the demon, red horns and knife poised handily, from the human, frail and cowering before the almighty avalanche of death? The palindrome does not struggle. The demon is appeased that it can take, and the human is appeased that it can give exactly the same amount. The palindrome is perfect balance and therefore happiness.
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Sprout-kido

When confronted with an opponent, punch him or her in the neck. Aim for the part that breathes. If you miss, you will still hit tender flesh and render shock. If you hit, you may kill him or her, but don't worry about that. God will forgive you, provided you say seven hundred seventy-seven consecutive rosaries without making a mistake.

If you miss the neck and your opponent is male (possibly having no neck), aim for the nuts. Hitting the nuts directly will disable any and all limbs that could do harm to you. This will render him pathetic. Take sympathy upon him. Pull his pants and compliment him on his grooming. If he has no grooming, compliment him on his wilderness preservation.

If you miss the neck and your opponent is female, run.

If you miss the neck and nuts and your opponent is male or an angry lesbian, bite anything that you can bite. After you bite, move your head in a side-to-front, side-to-back motion, thus tearing as much as you can. You will lose the battle, but with luck, infection will win the war.