Yes, There is a Dog Story in the Book!

Two Different Views of the Little Assassin

Chapter 20 is all about Emily, a sweet little JRT that kills things. The picture on the left is how Emily views herself. Kind, considerate...sleeps in the bed. You know. The picture on the right was posted on YouTube by a hamster shortly before the video feed went blank. We would like to think that it was just a dead battery or something...but.

"Emily bludgeoned her way through life as if each encounter was to be her last -- a tormented poet really, seeing peace as a lousy alternative to war and anarchy. She dreamed of grabbing little hamsters by the head and shaking them to death, burying their broken bodies under the house. If she were human, her ghastly crimes would have ended in the gas chamber, a pellet of cyanide for the bad little dog."

Well, we know that's not going to happen.

Chapter 2: Horseshoeing School or...Denial Part IV

Somehow I imagined that horseshoeing went something like this. Hang around with nice looking women, eat a little watermelon, do most of the work with one hand and a slightly insincere smile. Or is it a lecherous grin? They kind of look similar.

However, truth and reality often change places, mostly because one is always more painful than the other. What I got was...

"[On the first] Friday of the class, we started working on the frozen legs. We wrapped the bloody parts in burlap and tied a string to one end. The other end was tied to a post so we could hold the leg between our legs, which sort of imitated real life conditions. Those of us with money had a heavy leather apron, those without, bloody jeans."

[We did get some real horses to work on eventually. Maggots had eaten most of the dead legs anyway.] "There were three horses and all were caked with mud or manure or both. Two immediately pissed on our dirt floor, turning in into a kind of foamy mud with little steam vents next to each submerged leg. This made it a little hard to determine [the instructor's] interpretation of proper balance -- or maybe in this case, flotation."

It took another five years for things to improve much.

Our Staff at Red Planet Publishing

This photo was taken during our 'Fundamentalist Period.' Shortly thereafter, we heard about Islam's no alcohol rule. Well, to be honest, that was a toughie at the time. We flipped a coin and became Lutherans.

That lasted about a week. On further examination it appeared that Lutherans were allowed to dabble in the spirits, but as a general rule they were too normal, awkward at parties and most of them seemed to live in Minnesota.

Next we tried Catholicism. The red wine was a nice touch, though both of us experienced difficulty with the part about when you kneel and when you stand. Both of us have pretty bad knees (horseshoeing does that to a person) so we would just drink more wine. After a bit, we just decided to lie down in the pew and hope for divine intervention, or the room to quit spinning. We weren't excommunicated -- more like a situation where the priest rejects your application because it is so much easier than listening to your confession -- which is just about as long as my book and not nearly as funny. Well, there was that part about the three tattooed women at the car wash...

Did I say the book was fiction? Good. Wouldn't want any misunderstandings here.

Chapter 10 Explores the Ramifications of Genetic Engineering with Thoroughbreds

"It's All in the Name"

'Boo Boo' was a mistake. Just possibly the ugliest yearling ever to qualify for a summer sale, she was purchased because Doc was staring at the wrong catalog page....

.....After winning a few minor races, she entered the farm's broodmare ranks and abruptly founded a new line of odd-faced foals. I named one 'Insect Eyes,' another 'Llama Lips'....

You can figure out the rest.

The Book is Based in the Outback of Seattle

Chapter 6 -- Mud

So we all know what that means:

'Sure, Seattle gets its fair share of 'rain' jokes, normally perpetrated by California weatherpersons who don't have anything to talk about anyway. They sit for hours staring at the Doppler radar looking for one cloud with some sort of potential. Most of the year, a chipmunk with an alcohol problem could do the weather. "Geez, itttsss goin' to be sunny...where the hell did my tail go?"'

'Rain and horses also created another, well situation: I was stuck with approximately 482,586,000 tons of mud. Most of the world's supply. Felt like Saudi Arabia on a cocky day.'

The Look of Eagles

The important question here is why anyone would compare a race horse to a bald-headed scavenger that hangs around with buzzards and hyenas. And is too lazy to catch any food that isn't already dead.

Actually, I don't know. But I also can't figure out why people work in submarines.

"I'm not sure what Man O' War what was thinking when the shutter snapped -- how naive -- I know perfectly well what he was thinking about. The breeding shed was only fifty-feet down the road."

More on the Table of Contents

4. A Horse Named Tubby

5. The Look of Eagles

6. Mud

Chapter 4 seems like a combination of "The Man from Snowy..." & a "Godfather" sequel of some kind. The only thing you need to know is that the horse learned how to read The New York Times through the bathroom window.

Oh. The title isn't a fat-horse slur. Tubby was height/weight proportional for a young unemployed horse.