Affability Plays

Some mornings when I wake up, the barking is unbearable.  It's not the volume, or the duration as much as the tone.  A dog's bark was specifically bred to command human attention.  Unfortunately, I was not bred to be non-chalant in the face of a dog's bark.

I have no real choice; I can lay in bed getting angrier or I can get up and face the day.  So, I make the healthier choice and lay in bed getting angrier.  That doesn't last very long.  Eventually, the first dog will come to the bedroom.  Invariably, they come in the same order and with the same demands:

1.    Moshe wants breakfast

2.    Gretchen is in need of a toy

3.    Thurston is troubled by something in the kitchen

4.    Abby has killed something and wishes to present it to me

5.    Christy questions what she's been told about her reasons for being here

6.    Micah can't find the homework he needs to eat

7.    Turbo is looking for work, but has no valuable skills

8.    Chrysanthemum would like someone to read her a story

9.    Horace is insecure because of his tiny, partially hairless tail

10.  Baby isn't sure what to tell the telemarketer

11.  Bubbles needs the code for the parental locks so she can watch an adult movie

12.  Maurice must confess that he wrapped his Corvette around a telephone pole while driving drunk

13.  Ed wants to tell me that my wife has left me

14.  Mary made a picture on the kitchen floor with an unusual  medium

15.  Orley has apparently developed membranes like a flying squirrel

16.  Oprah ate out of the litter box

17.  Kwai Chang Caine just wants water

18.  Brandy wants a braided chain made of finest silver from the north of Spain

19.  Griffin would like to be noticed

20.  Little Joe wants justice

21.  Nathan can't understand why things are like this

22.  Luke is preparing explosives to blow up a nearby earthen dam

23.  Monte gave Luke the idea

24.  Chester doesn't feel he can be happy unless he becomes an actor

25.  Mustapha is still working on me about getting the same damn pet bunny

26.  Harriet is in heat and can't stop listening to The Indigo Girls

27.  Monroe is finding it difficult to keep Harriet's secrets

28.  Carly is still strung out on Jesus after eating my bible

29.  Carlos thinks I don't know he misplaced my smaller crescent wrench

30.  Gloria thinks she's fat

31.  Michaela left evidence that she ate the Peridium

32.  Pam is standing on my chest

33.  Gordon has a paperclip and knows 15 ways to choke on it

34.  Gordon 2 is convinced he has cancer, but it's a tick

35.  Mary-Ellen thinks I forgot her birthday, but the surprise is coming later

36.  Tyrone is so damn happy

37.  Amanda regrets sleeping with Tyrone

38.  Daisy's eyes pierce right through me

40.  I think Persephone wants me dead

41.  Apollo rises and sets with the sun

42.  Pedro announces his love of love itself

43.  Bjorn wants to see his horoscope

44.  Mickey stole my chicken

The sloth has no demands.