Greetings from the Town of Jim

I bet, if I wanted to, I could find out exactly how long it's been since I sat down and wrote a real post for this thing. I don't want to. Anyone interested can e-mail me and make their case for the day they picked and I still won't really care.

How's that for nice?

I'm house sitting for my grandparents right at this exact moment. I started two weeks ago, I think. (I'd have to get up and check, but I'm not into that at the moment.) Their computer was out to get fixed for the first week of my stay and problems that I may or may not have caused stopped me from picking it up last week. Yesterday I fixed the problems and finally got the computer.

So, here I am. Back in the saddle. Again.

I don't know what it is, exactly, but I'm very allergic to something in this house. I have sneezed so much in the last two weeks that my ribs hurt. When I sneeze or cough or take too deep a breath I hurt. I keep thinking it's the dog, but there's no way for me to prove that she's the problem specifically. And another sneezing fit has passed. I keep wondering how long it'll be before I get a hernia because of the sneezes. But that's just me being paranoid, again.

While here, I've come to an important life decision: I'm never going to own a dog. The only way that I'm going to put up with something that requires so much attention that it'll wake you up three or four times in the night with it's whining will be if half it's genetics are from me (or I believe that half it's genetics are from me). I can't stand how needy dogs are. Constantly following my around. Whining when I want to read or watch TV. Slipping and sliding and then falling on the floor when she's excited. Licking so loudly and persistently in the night that it wakes me up. And always trying to put a nose in my crotch. These things are not cute. The best thing about this dog over many, many others that I know is that she's much better trained.

My uncle's dog (who lives just down the hill from my grandparents) is even worse, because he doesn't get the attention he needs from anyone. There are days when the whining and barking and howling get so bad that I want to walk down to the house and kick the dog in its face. That should put a stop to it.

Tell me: Why do people get a dog (or have a kid), not give it the attention it needs, not give it the training to be properly accepted by others, and then wonder why it acts the way it does? Why don't they take the time to deal with what they have? Why when it doesn't work out well they want a new dog (or kid), like having a playmate will solve the problem? WHAT'S WRONG WITH PEOPLE?

Maybe it's not the dog that I should want to kick in the face.