Monday, June 19, 2006

Of Girls, Dogs, and Pools





What's the world coming to, when little girls become so officious, so enamoured of themselves and their entitlements that they hijack beloved properties belonging to others? Even if, especially if, those "others" happen to be miserably hot dogs. Who believe that they are entitled to the use of their own possessions, after all. But no, the girls feel their needs and desires take precedence. And from that unassailable belief in the rightness of their view of the order of things, they evict those poor hot dogs (mmm, hotdogs) from their teeny, tiny, albeit very wet pool.

Pool? Yes, a small, hard plastic, lipped pool filled with cool and very wet water. Whose very existence is meant for doggy relief from the heat. But no, the girls would have it otherwise. They are determined and their will prevails. The poor moaning-with-heat-prostration dogs look on with frustrated envy, with righteous indignation, but can do nothing. Is life fair? No, it most definitely is not, especially when one is rather low on the entitlement scale.

These girls have no conscience. What do they care if a dog's tongue is hanging out in desperate attempts to cool the inner core of that burning bod? Quite simply, they do not. Those pathetic glances of entreaty, those beseeching little yelps and yips of outrage do nothing to move the girls to pity and remorse. They will have their way. And that, poor dogs, is most certainly that.

Even the hose, the beloved garden hose! They've co-opted it too, for their nefarious purposes. There was a time when the hose would be directed toward those lolling tongues whereupon the dogs would jump with glee and purposeful attempt to capture the life-enhancing, cooling streams of jet-propelled water directly from the garden hose. Forget it! The girls, no longer satisfied with depriving the dogs of their beloved pool have now turned their attention to the hose! Justice, there is none.

But wait, what's this? A new kiddy pool is being taken out of its heavy, cumbersome container, the pump set up and primed, the pool laid out carefully, the upper ring of plastic filled from an electric air pump, and what's this? The garden hose placed gently within the confines of what will eventually become a large girls' pool where fun, frolic and gaeity will become the order of the day on hot summer days.

Share! Can we share? You took our pool, may we now share yours? Wot? Plastic and nails don't make for a good combination? Drat! Anything for an excuse. You just don't want to share with us. You take away our pool, you deprive us of our hot-weather comfort zone, you monopolize the garden hose, and don't give a care that we stand by miserable and excluded. Now you won't share with us this new toy of such promise?

We won't forget this! Next time we have upset stomaches, take care. Don't light any matches.

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