8-2-05

For some reason, I've been wonder why Almond Joy has nuts, but Mounds don't.

Is it because Mounds candy bars got neutered? Or are they without sexual organs?

Since I brought up the word "neutered", it reminded me of our former Dachshound, Oscar. We got Oscar shortly after the wife and I were married.

He was a one-of-a-kind dog, the kind you always dream about. His only bad faults were he tended to sleep a lot, would rather whiz inside than outside and Oscar was rather fond of hunching a leg, but only when he had the opportunity.

Oscar wasn't ever fond of my leg, not that I ever felt neglected. But if one of the boys was lying down, he would seize the moment and go to town. Needless to say, but I'll do so anyway, the boys weren't real fond of getting hunched, especially in front of company.

After careful consideration, we decided to have him neutered. Prior to that point, Oscar had a set that was rather noticeable. He liked to lay on his back with his legs spread, showing everybody his sack.

The wife didn't like this view and this was probably the main reason Oscar became like a Mounds bar, sans nuts.

His behavior didn't change after that. He did hunch less often, but I attributed it to maturity, not the lack of his nuggets. Plus, he just seemed to be less of a dog.

After the vet performed the procedure, I asked the wife if we could keep them, but she didn't want them put over the fireplace in a jar.

Women!

We lost Oscar the Dog just over a year ago. Now, there are two other Dachshounds living with us, but life is just not the same.

Anyway, enough about Oscar and his nuggets.

We're getting our driveway concreted. As I write this, concrete trucks are dumping their loan in my front yard. This will be nice and cut down on the dust floating around.

Had an interesting experience yesterday morning. I was ruling from my throne in the bathroom, minding my own business and doing my morning reading when something flashed between my legs. No, it wasn't that.

It was black and quick. I jumped, at least as well as possible when a person is atop a stool. At first, I thought it was a mouse or a rat. Just what I wanted to tell the wife: "Hey, we've got rats!"

She freaks if a cockroach comes within a football field from our house. I doubted she would be happy to have rodents slinking through the humble abode.

I glanced it again as it ran under my wife's vanity in the bathroom. After quickly finishing my business, I went off in search of the varmint. I found it next to the dirty clothes hamper and realized this wasn't a rat or mouse, it was a hamster.

My oldest son's hamster had escaped! I chased it into the bedroom and finally cornered the little sucker. I picked it up by its tails and swatted it a couple of times for scaring me and...okay, that was a joke. I carefully picked it up and carried it back to its cage.

Work was a booger yesterday, especially in the morning. It lightened up a little in the afternoon, but it was still rough. Then, to make the day perfect, after I got home from work, my wife wanted to go to Wal-Mart!

Argh! We were going to get a swingset for my nephew's birthday, which the wife's brother wanted to go in halves on. But he didn't want to go get it, would prefer that we did.

Hmmmmmm. Something was wrong with this picture. It was like pulling teeth to even buy the stupid swingset. The one we wanted, they said wasn't there any longer. Then, the wife talked to somebody else, who said it was in the back.

It took a good thirty minutes standing in the layaway section to get the stupid swingset. Then, we were supposed to wait for one of the cart pushers to come push the cart outside. Nobody showed up so I pushed it to the front of the store without ruining any merchandise or gorging any shoppers or associates.

Finally, we were at the front of the store. The greeter called for help several times without getting any. Apparently, they were worried we would steal this huge cart and didn't trust us to take it outside and would prefer that we stood around scratching our privates until a cart pusher finally arrived.

At last, we were rescued. An actual, living cart pusher showed up to put us out of our misery. The wife did what all women do after something like this, she called to complain to her mother, who just so happens to work at Wal-Mart and who I figured had something better to do with her time other than listen to complaints about her store.

We got home and watched The Bourne Supremacy on DVD. Awesome flick, as was The Bourne Identity. I had read the books by Robert Ludlum many years ago, back during the Texas era, so called because those were the years I lived in Texas.

Somehow, they have to speed up Matt Damon during the fight sequences. Nobody can move that fast, unless they have a hamster run between their legs while sitting on the toilet.

Enough for today, I say.