His Cheatin' Heart

CHEATER PAWS!!!!!!!

The cad. All of a sudden Manny the puggle goes from morbidly obese to pleasingly plump and he thinks he's a stud, has three women literally eating out of his muddy paws.

There's the dog lady of course. She starves him to death and walks him until his knobby little knees burn, but his ears literally quiver at the sound of her name. Naturally; she thinks it's acceptable for a man to pee on the living room furniture. I would imagine it was never a bone of contention when her ex left the seat up.

Then there's the cleaning lady. (Yes, I may be trailer bound, but I still have one well-heeled foot firmly planted in terra suburbia, which means I have a "household staff," albeit a tiny and very sporadic one.) So when my staff -- of one -- showed up in my absence the other day, Manny either charmed the pants off her with his crooked grin, or more likely slipped her a little something extra, to leave the pantry door open for him. This woman who is paid royally to vacuum up his dog hair and scrub away his hellacious dog smells with disinfectant somehow allowed herself to compromise her job performance, swallow her professional pride, and risk having me walk into a house that looked as if it had been carpet bombed by a flying Nabisco dumpster.

And me? When I followed the tell tale (or should I say tell tail) trail from the kitchen to Manny's favorite couch and found him sitting innocently amid a circle of half eaten crackers and cookies (I don't know who did this, but we will catch him, his cocked head said to me), did I scold him? No. Did I refuse to feed him dinner? Of course not. Did I just shake my head and spend the next two days bedridden with some strange sort of vicarious food poisoning while he farted in my face? Of course I did. Why? Maybe it's some sort of reverse "sins of the mother" theory. Or maybe it's that he keeps me warm at night without making any demands. Let's just say he knows a back rub means just a back rub.

So what's the deal? A guy with bad breath who bathes maybe once a month, flunked out of obedience school, and frankly isn't much of a conversationalist either has three -- if I do say so myself -- pretty hot babes willing to put up with all his shit and here I am, well educated, getting manicures every once in a while, and working out and showering regularly and I'm near death in bed for two days and nobody even brings me a bowl of chicken soup! I'm throwin' in the towel. And the razor. And the expensive work out clothes. Why bother?

And as for my three-timing pooch, I'm not dumping him so fast. After all, turn about is fair play, and I've never heard him complain that I fart in bed. Not that I ever would.