Open Letter to a Puppy, Chapter IV: The Wheels on the Bus


My sumkinda,

You are hardly a teen, yet already you are sassing back, wagging ass in front of boys and running with a boisterous, occasionally aggressive gang.

I could not be prouder.

I see you and think: Were you ever young? If so, when? Your granny met you for the first time and exclaimed “SHE’S a puppy?” You seemed to take no offense: You slept outside her door nightly, and licked her toes like Jesus with a foot fetish.

When she and your Aunt Caroline returned home, you reclaimed your throne as Jadie, Queen of Rubio, matron of House Bowles. Your voice has already settled into a deep baritone, and you patrol these grounds as if you are fierce. A stranger looking in would see you as trouble, a fetching look I hope you never lose.

Of course, any semblance of aggression is out the door the moment you are, and the glow of being new overtakes you. Your tail, as powerful as Indy’s whip, cannot help but shake your ass as if you are spasming a samba, undertowing any visage of menace.

We have settled into a walk routine in our double cul-de-sac neighborhood. The stroll within the parenthesis is brief, but you literally force me to stop and smell the roses. And turds. You have found your favorite shrubbery, which you check religiously for updates: Max got fixed and says it’s great!; Bella had octuplets and says it’s great! and she’ll do better next time; Daisy has the runs and says it’s great!

But there’s nothing about your puppyhood I enjoy more than watching you lose your shit over your thrice-weekly dog run. Every morning, you stare out the front window, awaiting The Woofpack, your delirious gang of canine pals who trample the Victory Dog Park.

They arrive in a minivan, a carpool of slobber and fur and hooting and whooping that joyously announce their arrival. If you’re not awake by the time The Woofpack arrive, you will be by the time they leave.

That’s because you, sweet girl, must double the decibel level with your booming good morning bellow. Bouncing off plaster and hardwood, your school day seems to rattle the windows and test my home’s tensile strengths. But it is glorious thunder, and in truth I envy your mile-long ride to the park.

What a joyous commute that must be! I can only imagine the conversations. Yay, traffic! Yay, congestion! Yay, farting! I smile every time I think about it.

Which would include my own occasional commute. All I need do is think of you if I find myself on the bumper grind, and imagine what you would remind: Why are you anxious? You’re sitting in a recliner, listening to your favorite music, sipping your favorite drink, trying to get home to do the same thing. And it will settle me.

I’m even flirting with the idea of taking you by bike to Lake Balboa, though I’m pretty sure you’d have me dunked within minutes of seeing the swans. Still, it’s tempting.

See what you’ve done? You’ve turned me into a selective hitchhiker, child: Only your outlook on life moves my wheels forward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl9bvuAV-Ao

The Lesson of Afghanistan



It’s hard to avoid newscaster parallels between our mad scramble to get out of Afghanistan and our mad scramble to get out of Vietnam.

After all, troops are sprinting to helicopters. Residents are clinging to departing aircraft — and dying in the plunge down. A country curses our name for promising safety in the face of tyranny.

But any comparisons of war strategy, troop movement or foreign presence need to stop with the period of this sentence. Because the lesson of Afghanistan is not the lesson of Vietnam (assuming either can be reduced to a singular moral).

Ken Burns’ 10-part series on Vietnam underscored the threat of exporting morality. Namely, the American lifestyle.

Afghanistan is a lesson on importing morality. Namely, religion.

Theists will cry in protest, I know. I think I can hear them now, just under the shrill din of anti-vaxers. Those are Muslims, not Christians, I hear them caterwaul. And what about Hindus and Buddhists, you ignorant slut?

To which I say, good question. But did you have to ask it so rudely? Asshole.

What was I saying? Oh yeah! Lesson.

This is the lesson. Religion poisons everything. Everything.

Those people beating down the doors of Kabul? They are believers, like Christians. Those people enforcing their own mask mandate (in the form of burkas)? They think they know the word of God, like Jews. What we’re seeing are just jersey and coaching changes on Team Abraham.

And as for the Buddhists, the Hindus, and anyone else who believes the universe has your best interest in mind: You are part of the problem. That reasoning is why the the Earth overheats and why beatable diseases linger and grow. The debate is no longer about accountability; it’s about degree of complicity.

We are the lesson of Afghanistan.