Not the best time to be an old dog

Hey we got a puppy in the house. I know because I slipped in his pee on my way across the kitchen.

I'm not sure why old dogs put up with pups, but it probably has something to do with the fact that owners like them, and we're hard-wired to like our caretakers. Isn't having a pup while the old dog is still around really a way for owners to hedge their emotional bets on mortality? Like renewing a subscription to a favorite magazine before it runs out, they figure when Creak goes it won't be so bad because they've got little Bud here to take my place.

Well, whatever. Meanwhile I have to slip through his pee until he figures out that the neighbor's magnolia is where we do that sort of thing.

And, you know, it's harder to communicate with pups today. They just don't smell right. I mean, they don't smell correctly -- sticking their nose totally where it doesn't belong. Like in my ear. What is that all about? There are places to smell and places not to smell, and the ear is a place not to smell. Anyway, I knocked the little pup on his head when he stuck his nose in my ear, but I don't think he's figured out where to stick his nose yet.

God, was I ever that ignorant? I'm in the unfortunate position of educating this little wet-nosed pup because it's early in the millennium and nobody seems to know anything anymore, not like in the 70s when everyone knew everything. All the basics have changed. No more simple alarm clocks with a pull-out knob to set the alarm, no more dewey decimal system, it's Google to look up stuff. No more simple dashboard switches on the car, the new BMW Seven series has i-drive--one knob right out of a video game that controls 700 functions.

This is not a happy time to be a teacher or a student, especially a teacher of pups who haven't found the magnolia bush yet.

Anyway, the little pup came over to me while I was sleeping and put all 102 degrees Fahrenheit of his floppy body on my hip. Don't know how he knew to do that.