I like my shoes well worn

I ate two shoes this morning. Two different shoes. Not a pair. Actually I just chewed them to death. Didn't eat them. And I'm probably gonna get slapped for it. Don't care. Something about eating and pain that goes together. The more I hurt the more I eat. Wonder if humans have the same urge?

So now I'm just waitin for someone to get home and find out two pair of shoes are destroyed. Humans are under the mistaken impression that if they don't punish us immediately for something we've done wrong, we won't know why they're punishing us. It took us a long time to get that one over on them, and so I'm hoping nobody shows up for another hour or so which would put me into the 60 minutes rule which says you can't punish a dog for anything that happened more than 60 minutes ago. For idiot dogs like Dalmatians, it's more like 60 seconds.

Anyway, while I'm waitin for the other shoe to drop, so to speak, I'm wonderin why eating and pain go together? Unless you've got stomach problems, psychological, emotional, joint and muscle pain all seem to signal the eating urge. And for a dog this is a serious problem - causing us to chew shoes. Remember, we can't open the refrigerator and nosh. If it ain't in our bowl or on the floor, our chances of eating are greatly diminished.

Which probably is why I have time to think about this eating-pain connection more than the average human arthritis sufferer. You all just go eat. Elbow bends, mouth opens, brain not engaged. I'm not so lucky, and neither are the wearers of two pair of shoes.

I think it's fear. We eat because we're afraid. But probably, to paraphrase FDR, we have nothing to fear but food itself, because we know that the more we eat the more we want, and the more we eat the closer we are to stressing our ankles and hips to the point of plastic.

Sometimes I think that instead of taking arthritis medication, my CMO (canine maintenance organization) ought to pay for visits to a shrink, a health club and the dog version of Jenny Craig.

Anyway, it's fear that makes us eat, and while we might assume that we have a lot of be afraid of, we can't say we're afraid of the unknown. Arthritis is predictable. We know what's happening and what's likely to happen next to our bodies. So if control conquers fear, like rock beats scissors, then our food intake ought to go down.

Just heard the door slam downstairs. Somebody's home. I figure it's been 75 minutes since the last bite of shoe. No wet spit on them anymore. I think I'm on the right side of the 60 minute rule. We'll see.

Thwack.

Gotta buy him a quartz watch for his birthday.