The diary in the sea chest

If you read my last blog, you will know that my human brother Chad has moved out, and Daddy is destroying the stairway trying to bring his discarded furniture up from the basement so Mommy and Daddy can remodel. Some of these discarded items have been in my Daddy’s family for decades, including an old sea man’s (tee-hee) chest that Daddy’s Granddad carried up the pier on to one end of the battleship and shortly afterwards down the other pier and back home having deduced that his contribution to the Allied cause in the First World War was to grow grapes, make wine, and ship it to Germany hoping that the Kaiser would get blind drunk and surrender. History is unclear on the success of this endeavor.

Pocket and I investigated this sea chest yesterday and found the diary of Daddy’s boyhood dog Barney. (A diary is like a blog that no one gets to read. I don’t understand the point either.) Pocket and I spent the morning reading it and we were fascinated to realize that stupidity is passed down from generation to generation. This is from Barney’s journal circa 1974.

“Last night as I lay in the kitchen trying to hide the fact that I had spent the morning in the swamp and thanking the puppy Gods that no one would take the leash law seriously for another 20 years I heard Daddy’s Mommy (Foley’s note: Barney called my Daddy ‘Daddy’ and didn’t call anybody Mommy) banging on the bathroom door from the inside and I thought to myself ‘Oh Lord what has this woman done now!’

I walked out of the kitchen, into the hallway, and to the bathroom door. Daddy’s Mom was banging on it and she yelled “Hey Captain Stupid (which is what she called her husband) I am struck in the bathroom.” Captain Stupid was upstairs talking with Daddy and he, Daddy, and Daddy’s sister came downstairs. Daddy was 9 and Sister 12. They asked their Mom what was wrong and she said she was stuck in the bathroom.

Now they were a very emotional people, and upon hearing that their mother was trapped in the bathroom, both children panicked, picturing themselves living out their childhood with their mother stuck in the bathroom, condemned to sliding slices of meat under the door so she wouldn’t starve, having their graduation pictures taken with their father and a door, having to share a single bathroom. It was too much the bear.

They began to cry, and their Mom began to cry, and I went in the kitchen, saw a treat on the floor and thought ‘Great, dinner and a show.’ I picked up my treat and walked in the living room, where I was never allowed, and sat to watch. “Captain Stupid get me out of here,” my Daddy’s Mom yelled. (Just to note, I do not believe the man had any formal military training.)

“Woman, take the hinge off the door!” the Captain said. Woman was his nickname for his wife, and dog his nickname for me. He was south of a clever man.

“I can’t do it, I can’t do it!” she yelled, the children cried, the Captain became more flustered. I chewed.

“Take this screwdriver!” he said then thwacked the handle against the door.

“It won’t fit!” she said, the first time in the history of her marriage she had done so to him.

“Excuse me Captain,” I said. “That door is nothing more than glorified cardboard, a good kick should open it, or some pressure, perhaps a blast from your shoulder. Hell I could just put my paws on it and it’ll pop open. Just don’t do anything dumb like trying to climb through the window.”

He announced he was going to climb through the window.

See this was an old New England family with ancestors who fought in the revolution, and well, these Yankees sure as hell weren’t listening to the dog. The Captain spoke to the door. “Put the toilet seat down, when I climb in the window I will step on it.”

The Captain then went down the stairs and Daddy and his sister were reaching under the door to touch their Mommy like people trapped in a sinking ocean liner begging for one touch of humanity. I suppose, being the dog, I should have gone over, nuzzled them, and made them feel safe, but I was wondering if I should bolt out the door and take my chances being a hobo’s dog.

There were endless sobs at the door as children and parent said their inevitable goodbyes. Then they heard the scratch of an unsteady ladder on cheap aluminum siding and then the Captain hauling his physique carved from fists full of Narragansett beer upwards to the open window. We heard Woman telling him to be careful as he stood on the top rung, and then slowly lowered himself through the window as my heart raced in anticipation of the inevitable thud that would accompany his demise which I was sure was imminent since it was the destiny of all members of the Captain’s family through the generations to die at the culmination of an act of stupid futility.

But all hope of that was lost as we heard the splash, as the Captain’s two feet landed in the toilet bowl, and then the rip of the shower curtain which he tried to grab as he toppled out of the bowl and into the tub, and then the words, the dirty, awful, cuss words that were never published in the Bible, with accepted words sprinkled about, which, when strung together, meant “why didn’t you put the toilet seat down?”

“I did put the seat down.” Woman said.

“If you put the seat down then how the did I end up in the toilet bowl!”

“I put the seat down, not the lid.”

“Why the would you think that I wanted the seat down and no the lid?”

“I thought you finally learned to be polite,” she said.

Meanwhile, the two neglected children, were huddled by the door, imagining that is where they would spend the rest of their days, to be known as the Bathroom Door children, with television news crews parked in the front yard doing stories on the kids whose only contact with their parents was between a cheap cardboard door.

They both gave out a startled cry when the door opened and their father walked by them, squish, squish, squish, squish, followed by their mother, two steps behind him as he went up the stairs, arguing about whose fault it was the door jammed. Sister soon followed, yelling at the Captain to leave her Mom alone.

My Daddy, all of nine years old, was sitting by the door, looking rather bewildered. I went over to him, licked his hand, put my bulky weight against him and looked into his blue eyes. “Whatever happens, 37 years from now, don’t try to move a bed up two stories on your own,” I said.

I can only hope he heeds my advice, and the cycle of stupidity stops.

I’m looking at the dog in the mirror by Foley Monster

When I saw Zoe Boe’s Mom’s drawing of yours truly dressed as the so called King of Pop I decided to learn more about the her inspiration and wiped out my Daddy’s I Tunes account by downloading his music.

There was a song that struck a chord with your Mini-Monster of Pop. Mr. Jackson sings that he wants to make the world a better place and will do so by starting with the man in the mirror. I would like to make the world a better place, and I am starting with the dog in the mirror.

1. I will not attack Pocket without just cause.

Provided we all agree that her breathing is just cause.

2. I will not be possessive of my Mommy’s lap and share it with others.

Provided she gains about 300 pounds so there is plenty of lap for everyone.

3. I will no longer tell embarrassing stories about my Daddy

Like this one: On the Fourth of July Daddy went to the Red Sox game and Mommy went to her brother’s house in Plymouth for a cookout. Well, Daddy got home first. The day before Mommy was sad because she was trying to convert the computer room to a spare bedroom for the grandbabies and not making much progress so Daddy thought it would be a good thing if he helped by bringing my human brother’s abandoned day bed from the basement to the second floor.

It wasn’t.

Pocket and I were at the cellar door listening as Daddy got his tools and went into the basement. The first swear word came in thirty seconds when he couldn’t find the light switch and walked into the bed. Then he yelled when he pinched a finger between the spring and the frame, dropped the headboard on his foot, had the side of the bed crash on his head, and when he found the final bolt that connected the bracket to the box spring was stripped.

“It’s stripped!” Daddy yelled. “It’s stripped, it’s stripped, it’s stripped, the $%#$#%# thing is stripped!”

“What’s wrong?” Pocket asked.

“It’s stripped,” I guessed.

Then Daddy began to bring the bed upstairs. We have stairs that go up, turn, and double back with two landings which is nice when you’re a dog because you don’t have that long stairway straight down, but when you’re moving a bed, by yourself, and don’t have an SAT score because you got the day of the test wrong, it is a bad thing when you make the turn to go up the stairs, and scratch the paint with the other end of the headboard, or knock down a picture, or, ooops, there goes the CD tower, oh look, Tom Waits, it is a bad thing.

Then Daddy wanted to bring up the box spring with the one bracket still on. He got it around one corner, then the second, and then there was a slam, and the bad words started. And then lots of banging as the entire building shook and Pocket and I ran upstairs and hid under the bed. It seemed like forever that there was continually banging and swearing and then the phone rang, and Daddy answered it. It was Mommy and he told her in a small defeated voice that he had got the head board stuck in the stairway. I stuck my head around the open cellar door and saw that Daddy had somehow got one corner of the bed jammed about three inches into the plaster in the wall opposite the doorway, it’s opposite corner splitting a hole in the rug beneath the lip of the third step from the top, the corner with the bracket jammed under the slanted roof, and on the other wall several gouges where Daddy had tried rocking the spring back in forth.

“Oh my gosh Daddy broke the cellar,” Pocket said.

We could hear Mommy yelling at him through the phone. I got the screw driver in my mouth and Pocket the wrench and we climbed up the head board and worked together and took off the bracket then eased the box spring upstairs while Daddy was curled in a ball whining to Mommy. By the time he hung up we had it upstairs. Of course when Mommy got home he took all the credit. But when she saw the cellar, he got all the yelling too.

4. I will not longer hump my Daddy’s arm.

Please let me take a moment to explain. While we lay in bed, or when Daddy is on the floor and his arm is on Mommy’s recliner, I stand over his arm, wrap my forelegs around his wrist, my back legs below his elbow, then press down my delicate parts and I hump. Mommy says it’s disgusting. Daddy says it is part of our breed characteristics, that, when we were ratters in our working days, that we would subdue the rats by grasping them in our forelegs and humping it.

Daddy has a very idyllic worldview. Perhaps he thought that my forefathers would chase down a rat, catch it, and then gently hump it to death. “Ah, look at Foley humping that rat,” the farmer would say after my ancestor caught a varmint. “Rat looks rather happy to die. You know, that’s the way I want to go, being gently humped by a Yorkie, just like me Mom.”

Mommy gets very upset if I hump Daddy in the bed. She tells him to make me stop, and he swats me in the behind, but I’m so into it I think: “Cool. Foreplay!” Then I start barking “Whose my Daddy? Whose my Daddy?” while he’s swatting me until Mommy yells at me to stop and I have to dismount.

Anyway, I’m looking at the hump at the mirror and I am planning to dismount. No more humping.

Starting tomorrow.

I broke my Daddy by Pocket

I am breaking my Mommy and Daddy by Pocket

Ever since I came to live with my Mommy and Daddy, Mommy has limped. I don’t know why, I figure Foley did something to break her. But now Daddy is limping and I think it must be my fault.

Daddy is the one who walks us, takes us out to do our business, and gets on the floor to play with us. He still does it, but now he does it slowly, stops several times, and winces.

I don’t know how I broke him, but, like my missing orange ball and my missing ovaries things are different and I think it’s my fault.

He still gets down on the floor to play with us. He’s such a good guy. Mommy calls him good guy in Portuguese. For those of you who don’t know Portuguese the word for “good guy” is idiot. Mommy also thinks I’m a good guy. When I’m sitting on the couch barking at the blowing leaves she yells: “Pocket you idiot get out of the window,” and I look at her and say: “But Momma, I’m a girl!’

Daddy sits on the floor with his back to the couch and throws the ball and depending on which way it bounces it could go in the kitchen, the dining room, or the bathroom. Every throw a million things could happen. When Daddy lifts that ball and gets ready to throw it, oh the anticipation is palatable, and I don’t even know what that means!

I run after the ball, and then I nose it to push it along, usually under the water dish, or behind the cabinet in the kitchen, or under the liquor cabinet, and then I stand and bark at the ball until Daddy comes and gets it (unless it’s the liquor cabinet because Mommy’s already there.) He used to crawl over but now he stands up and limps, and I get very impatient waiting for him to gimp over. And then he gets mad at me, because he goes back, throws the ball, and I nose it under something again, and Daddy pulls himself up to get it, and yells at me, and Mommy says in Portuglish “Stop throwing the ball, you good guy!” The entire system’s breaking down. It’s all very disturbing.

Plus it is interfering with my never-ending potty training. I need to be out for a while to empty the tank. If not I come in and sprinkle here and there. But now Daddy either just goes on the porch and gives me a little bit of the flexi-leash to find my spot, and then right back inside, or we’re out for fifteen minutes as Daddy drags his leg behind, and I take a nap on the grass waiting for him to catch up to me.

And we aren’t going for walks. Daddy does a lot of walking at work and by the time he gets home he needs to ice his leg and take ibpawfun. Then Daddy sits on the floor, plays ball with me, scratches Foley or lets her lick his hand, while he tries to transcribe either my thoughts, or Foley’s on the Tanner Brigade. So there’s Daddy, on the floor, one hand playing with me, one hand scratching Foley, trying to type on the computer, and if he stops Foley gets snitzy so he tries to type with his nose. I know, what an idiot.

But now that he’s broken, I don’t’ know how much longer he’ll be able to do it. I don’t know how I broke him, if it was pulling me while I’m chasing a bunny, or while he was crawling on the floor to dislodge a wedged ball, or if he stepped in a hole walking us at the state medical institution after the arrest of a serial digger.

Mommy and Daddy are both going to the same knee doctor in August. I hope he’s a good doctor and I hope they don’t tense up when they insert the thermometer into their buttocks because at that point, even though you are nervous, it is much better to relax. Mommy is going to have to get her knee replaced again and I don’t know what they are going to do with Daddy. He can’t run right now but when they come at him with that thermometer he might be cured.

Mommy said he might have to have cat-throat-scope-it surgery. I hope they don’t make him into a pussy. Ugh.

So July will be our month of limps. I just don’t understand humans. They call them evolved but here they are limping on two legs while Foley and I are rocking and rolling on four.

But at least his arm still works, and if the thermometer does not hurt his butt he can still sit and throw, and as long as I watch where I’m nosing the ball, the fun will never stop.

Excuse my Portuguese but my Daddy is a bigger idiot than yours, and I’m willing to fight over it.

Foley Monster goes to a therapist about her anger issues

At the insistence of Zoe Boe, Foley Monster has agreed to enter anger management. Let’s drop in on a session.

Foley Monster comes into the room, wearing her new Tanner Brigade bandanna, and jumps on the couch. Doctor Phred, who is working with Foley on her anger issues clears his throat.

Foley growls and jumps down.

“What did I tell you about the couch Foley?” Dr. Phred asks. “That is my couch, I have control over it and you can’t get on the couch until I give you permission because you are a dog, I am a human, and I am the pack leader.”

Foley sighed and repeated to herself: “Accept others and have patience, accept others and have patience, accept that this guy has an extraordinary connection to his couch and be patient for the lightning strike that will leave him nothing but a cinder under my paw.”

“Now Foley,” Dr. Phred said. “Do you accept that this is my couch?”

“Yes Doctor,” Foley answered.

“And how does that make you feel?”

Foley looked at him, opened her mouth, and began to pant. It gave the appearance that she was happily smiling. Actually, she was just cooling off her steaming, angry, little body. “That’s a good girl,” he said and patted the couch for her to jump on it. She almost missed the signal, imagining Dr. Phred on a spigot, covered with barbeque sauce, slowly being turned as the rest of the brigade drooled and hoped for a drumstick.

“Now Foley how have you been doing with your anger since we last spoke?”

“Very well,” Foley said confidently.

“Are you still attacking Pocket for no reason?”

“Of course not, I would never attack my sister for no reason.”

“So you haven’t attacked Pocket?”

“Oh sure, like the other day, we were out of Tasty Chews, so I nipped her. And later that night she was sleeping, so I bit her ear, all with good reason.”

“Foley, those aren’t good reasons. You are letting anger build up in you and then attacking your sister as a release for that anger.”

“Or,” Foley contradicted, “she could be an annoying little pissy pants.”
“Are you angry at Pocket’s trouble with housebreaking because as a puppy you had trouble with housebreaking?”

“Oh please,” Foley scoffed. “I was the only one in the litter who didn’t pee the womb. I have always had excellent control.”

“Ah!” Doctor Phred said. “You can control your peeing but not your temper! Now does this have anything to do with issues with your birth mother? Was there enough room at the teet?”

“The what?”

“The teet.”

“The toot?”

“The teet. To drink your mother’s milk.”

Foley was horrified. “How can you say that about my Mom? What’s wrong with you? I don’t go around talking about your brothers and sisters sucking your Mom’s toots.”

“Teets!”

“Whatever!” Foley looked around the room. “Do you have any actual medical training?”

The Doctor, annoyed, pressed on in pursuit of his teet answer. “Yes, there were three of us in the litter and six teets,” Foley finally said. “There was plenty of room, we could spread out, I used to bring a magazine, we rented her out for birthday parties.”

“Well, if that it isn’t mother or potty issues then we’ll move on to something more advanced. I am going to show you a series of images and you tell me what it looks like to you.” He held up the first ink blot image.

“That’s what Pocket did on the rug yesterday.” He held up a second. “That’s what Pocket did on the rug today.” He held up a third. “And that’s a dirty, dirty picture you sicko.”

“You seem to be obsessed with Pocket peed on this, Pocket peed on that, are you afraid Pocket is taking attention away from you?”

“First of all, no one is taking attention away from me, second of all, Pocket did pee on that I can smell it.”

Dr Phred looked at the image. “You’re right, I dropped it in the waiting room she came over and peed on it. Very fast pee-er that one.” Foley and Doctor Phred finally agreed on something.

“Well, if it isn’t Mother issues, or perception issues, or jealousy issues, there is only one other thing that could be causing these attitude problems.”

“Yes, fireworks, I have been saying that all along. Now can I go home?

“Fireworks get you upset do they?”

“Yes!”

“Because they’re hot?”

“Hot? Well I never really thought of that. I guess so. I don’t like hot things.”

“And you were panting earlier, you do that when you’re hot too don’t you.”

“Yes. There’s nothing worse than a sweaty pooch.”

Hmm. Doctor Phred rubbed his chin in deep thought. “And those firework, they flash in the sky don’t they?”

“Well some do, I guess,”

The Doctor sat back.

“You recently celebrated a birthday is that right?”

“Yes, I turned nine.”

“Nine,” he said rubbing his chin. “Nine. You know Foley women of a certain age, their bodies begin to change.”

Foley sat upright. “What’cha talkin’ about certain age?” she asked.

“And when they change they are often susceptible to hot flashes like the fire works that bother you so much.”

“Oh you are so not going there Sister Disco.”

“Have you had problems with your bladder?”

“Tastes the same.”

“Any problems sleeping?”

“I get restless during my 22nd hour of sleep.”

“Does your mood change suddenly?”

“I couldn’t find my squeaky squirrel this morning, I’m so sad!”

“Do you have headaches?”

“Right now yes.”

“Memory problems?”

“Who are you, what are you doing in my house, what have you done to the window treatments?”

“Foley, you are going through menopause which is why you have anger issues,” Doctor Phred proclaimed.

“And here I am fresh out of ovaries.”

“You know, it is very interesting that most of the women I diagnose with anger issues are suffering from menopause. I think it really takes a man to diagnose these things.”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure it does,” Foley said. She got down and went to the door. “And the good news is that there are so many more of us,” she said opening the door. “Here are some more of my angry menopausal friends: This is Daisy Mae, and Sandy, and Mollie, and Hattie Mae, and Saffron, and Zoe Boe, and Fay Fay, and Lily, and worst of all, Lord help you Pepsi.”

The female dogs had the Doctor in a corner and were growling at him and he yelled out for help as Foley got in the elevator preparing to go home and see if she could make dirty pictures out of Pocket’s pee stains in the rug.

Foley Monster's fireworks rant

I usually blog just for my dog friends but today I am blogging for their stupid Mommies and Daddies and their stupid friends. What is your freaking fascination with fireworks?

Every single municipality has to have their own fireworks display. Heaven forbid we don’t have fireworks. If not then the mindless lemmings couldn’t go and sit on the grass (and really when do your Mommies and Daddies ever sit on the grass except at a Jimmy Buffett concert when they smoke their “doobies,” their “Maryjane”? Their “reefer”?) and look up at the sky and say “oooooh, look at the green ones, oooooh look at the yellow one, oooooh look at the blue ones!”

You want to see something green, look at the grass, you want to see something yellow, look at the sun, you want to see something blue, look at the sky. Walk outside on a summer day, look up, look down, there’s your fireworks display.

“Oh it lights up the sky just like it’s daytime,” the humans say. Yeah? You know what we got lots of during the summer? Sunlight. There is more danm sunlight on the fourth of July then just about any day. So they all go rushing off somewhere just as daylight is flickering it’s last, sit down, look up at sky, and wait until it’s lit up again. You could have been looking at a lit sky for the last 17 hours ya bunch of dopes.

And the noise! Here is a brilliant idea for humans who are afraid of terrorists with guns, unruly teens with guns, urban youths with guns, post menopausal grannies with guns, lets take something that sounds exactly like all those things we’re afraid of and have it echo for miles.

For every village throughout the world there is no worse sound that being surrounded by gunfire knowing you and your neighbors can’t get freed as slowly the vice of violence squeezes the life from all of you. But when Daddy took me out on July 4th our neighborhood sounded exactly like that.

But the worst part of fireworks is any fiddlehead can get their hands on them and set them off not at the local high school but right next door to ours houses. Thanks to states like South Carolina where they kill good puppies and they are ruled by the handsome and desirable McGuvy anybody who can strike a match can put on a fireworks display that will make anything going off over the Charles River look like baby boomers holding up cell phones begging for the third encore at a Billy Joel concert.

So, in conclusion, of all the silly, crazy, worrisome, senseless things humans do, none are as silly, crazy, worrisome or senseless as celebrating their nation’s founding by trying to extend the endless day just as night has put the light to rest; ohhhing and awwing over primary colors that cannot match one brief glimpse of a rainbow as they pop and sizzle; as they shake our doggy beds, our crates, our houses, our neighborhoods, with the same fury that used to send neighbors grabbing their belongings and scampering for safety; and speaking of neighbors, my Rube Goldberg squirrel obsessed neighbor and drunk off his rocket naked neighbor Franks and Beans could find a hot Latino on Craig’s List, get a thousand rockets from a Governor who keeps his agenda in his pants and blow up my building in a drunk squirrel hating rage; and for all these reasons I move that you work fire no more, that you leave the uses of working fire to the Gods, and you give your patient, loving, always faithful friends’ ears and nerves a well deserved rest.

The Declaration of Dogpendence

It has been suggested that I help our friends from other nations understand the Fourth of July. I am sorry I am late writing this but I found out what happens when you stick a bottle rocket up a Yorkie’s butt. It took me half the day to find where Pocket landed. But now that Pocket is home, safe, sound, and singed I may begin.

Hobo Hudson has presented to Foley and Pocket the Declaration of Dogdependence. Foley is reading it aloud.

Hobo reading: “When in the Course of puppy events, it becomes necessary for dogs to dissolve the bandwidths which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of dogkind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

Foley: Hobo, I have no idea what that means.

Hobo: We are telling Levi that we have to separate from his web site because we have the natural born right to be free.

Foley: Well let’s just say that, let’s just say Levi, we want nuthin’ to do with you we wanna have our own site, so fooey.

Hobo: Foley, words have power, and we need to show Levi that well crafted, intelligently chosen language can clearly explain a position contrary to that held by the reader.

Pocket: Or I could poo on the page.

Hobo: I think the words are enough Pocket.

Pocket: OK, but one poo is worth a thousand words.

Hobo reading: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all dogs are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Frosty Paws. That to secure these rights, web sites are instituted among dogs, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Web Site becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the dogs to alter or abolish it and to institute a new Web Site, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Web Sites long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that dogs are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Websites, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Foley: What is an usurpation? If I was usupartated I am sure I would remember it.

Pocket: When I was six months I was usupartated. Mommy did it so I won’t litter.

Hobo: No Pocket, it means to take a dog’s rights away from them.

Foley: Well if you’re just going to make up words Hobo I don’t think there is any point to writing this.

Hobo: I am not making up words. We are saying that Levi abused his power as site owner and that we have freedom to bark, and freedom to start our own website and govern ourselves.

Pocket: Sounds like a lot of work. Perhaps I can just go and fart in his general direction until he leaves the room and then we can take over.

Foley: Excellent idea Pocket, a coup de fart.

Hobo: I still think a well thought out, well written declaration of principles is more appropriate. He began reading again: “Such has been the patient sufferance of these Profiles; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Web Site Management. The history of Levi is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these profiles. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his website to pass community guidelines of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so…..”

Foley: Boorring!

Hobo: No, this is important, this is where we list our grievances against Levi.

Foley: Here’s out only grievance, Levi is a douche!

Hobo: Again there are more delicate, intelligent ways of saying that……Oh man Pocket took a poo on the declaration.

Pocket: No I didn’t.

Hobo: There are only three of us here and it wasn’t Foley or I.

Foley: sniffing the poo. Yeah, chicken and poo, that’s Pocket.

Pocket: Hey she who smelt it dealt it.

Foley: Let me scrape it off. Foley scrapes it off.

Pocket: Well I’m sorry, I was usurpatated as a pup.

Hobo picks up the document

Hobo: “We, therefore, the Representatives of the Tanner Brigade, in General Agreement, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good Profiles, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Profiles are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent Pups; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the Doggyspace, and that all political connection between them and Doggyspace, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent Sites, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent Web Sites may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Foley: What does this mean exactly?

Hobo: It means poo on Levi.

Pocket: Well I did that!

Foley: So we are free.

Hobo: Yes we are. Like our Mommies and Daddies forefathers did with England when they sent a similar letter to King George declaring their independence on July 4, 1776 which is when the United States of America was created.

Foley: Yes, I have heard of that.

Pocket: So do I, that is when John Hancock took a big dump on the paper and sent it to King George.

Foley: Speaking of which I have to leave my John Hancock on the front lawn. God job Hobo, send it off.

Foley and Pocket leave the room.

Hobo: Bloggers!

Foley and Kate plus 8

Foley and Kate Plus 8

CAMERA SHOWS FOLEY AND KATE SITTING ON THE COUCH TOGETHER AT THE END OF THE EPISODE.

Kate: Well, I hope you’re happy Foley, you ruined the children’s trip to Chuck E. Cheese.

Foley: Look lady, I’m a Terrier. I see a giant rat I attack.

Kate: You scared the children terribly. When you had his ankle in your mouth and you were shaking his leg, and stuffing was flying everywhere, I have never seen the children so upset. Jon never bit a pizza parlor’s mascot on the leg, I can say that for the man.

Foley: How was I to know a giant rat was going to be there?

Kate: The name of the place is Chuck E. Cheese what did you think?

Foley: I thought the mascot would be I giant block of cheese. Why didn’t they name the place Chuck E. Rat?

Kate: It took me all day to calm Mady down.

Foley: Oh please, do not get me started on Mady, that kid needs to be tested.

Kate: I don’t believe you just said that! We agreed we would not discuss Mady on camera.

Foley: Oh for heaven’s sake! The viewers can see what’s going on. If you don’t do something that kid’s is going to be going to school on a bus shorter than me.

Kate: The only thing wrong with Mady is having to see her father paraded all over the cover of Us Weekly.

Foley: Bitch please. The kid covered herself with balls and hid in the bottom of the pit and the only reason we found her was my ability to sniff her out and not once did you say thank you. I didn’t even get a treat. Strange dog off the street finds your kid at the bottom of a pit you would have given them a treat, the dog you share your bed with, nothing!

Kate: I’m sorry, I’m sorry I expected my partner to rescue our child. Obviously I’m the one. I expect too much.

Foley: Oh climb off the cross, we can use the wood to build another one of those freaky crooked houses.

Kate: You are just really so unbelievable.

Foley: Yeah, sure, I’m unbelievable. By the way, next hair cut? I can get you an appointment with my groomer, if you like.

Kate: I am not even going to dignify that with a response. I don’t spend all day with personal grooming. While I’m out there with the kids having a picnic you’re in here licking your toes.

Foley: I’m sorry, I need my me time. I just can’t stick my head in a wood chipper each morning and be ready to go.

Kate: You know for the first time you are making me miss John.

Foley: Well now you finally understand how your children feel.

Kate: They don’t miss their father anymore than they miss their baby teeth.

Foley: Oh don’t get me started on their baby teeth. The tooth fairy had to get a bailout from Obama to keep up with your toothless brood.

Kate: Oh and you don’t like multiple birth Moms? So that wasn’t your picture in In Touch magazine with the Octo-mom?

Foley: We both happened to be coming out of Tavern on the Green at the same time. I barely know the woman.

Kate: Oh please, with your love of crap filled diapers, a woman with eight infants is a dream come true for you.

Foley: Well she probably doesn’t have that weird stick in the bottom drawer of her nightstand.

Kate: I told you not to go into my nightstand but you did anyway.

Foley: Hey I’m a dog, sometimes I need something to chew on, and it was nice and big with ridges for my teeth, but as soon as I began chewing the danm thing began to vibrate. Scared the crap out of me.

Kate: I know I had to clean it up.

Foley: That wasn’t me that was Mady.

Kate: You know what? This isn’t working, just get down off the couch. Down, get down.

Foley: I don’t follow commands lady.

Kate: Here, look at the ball, go chase. (Kate throws the ball)

Foley: You’re drunk aren’t you?

Kate: I am going to have to get my security guard who I am definitely not having an affair with remove you from the house right now.

Foley: All right but I’m taking a steak.

Kate: Why do you get a steak?

Foley: I need to give it to my sister. Long story.

(Foley jumps off the couch and walks out of the frame)

Kate: You better leave money for that steak dog!

(Next scene John and Foley are sitting on the couch together.)

Foley: Man, I hate her.

John: Oh I hate her.

Foley: I’d like to bite her in the butt.

John: No, she likes that. And it doesn’t taste good.

Foley: Then the ankle, I’d like to rip the stuffing out of her like a rat mascot.

John: I’d like to hit her in the head with a skillet.

Foley: Oh that would be so cool. Wham. Make that squeezed in face even more smushed.

John: Then we could dig a hole in that back yard and dump her in.

Foley: We could get the kids to help, make it a family outing.

John: Oh yes, the kids hate her too.

Foley: And like the divorce you’d be killing their Mom for the kids.

John: That’s right. And thanks for covering for me with the Octo-mom.

Foley: No problem, but man, you’ve got a weird thing for chicks with wide birth canals.

John: I prefer not to talk about that.

Foley: You want to got get some drinks?

John: Who is going to stay with the kids?

Foley: You know, the producer, the boom guys, the cameras guys, the usual folk.

John: OK then let’s go.

Final scene: Kate and Pocket on the couch

Kate: You weren’t in my house five minutes before you peed on the rug.

Pocket: It was Mady.

Kate: Oh don’t lie it was not. Why did you come here anyway?

Pocket: Foley forgot the ketchup.

Kate: Well just take it and go.

Pocket: Lady you give bitches a bad name.

Kate is left on the couch alone