The Four-legged Child!

Ah, sweet opportunity!

I''m finally alone. Everyone's gone. The kids, the wife ...gone. It's just me and Cletus! At the moment Cletus, our Great Dane, is sprawled out across the floor ...sleeping. Apparently he's completely worn out, exhausted from doing nothing all day long. Sweet doggie-dreams!

It seems I always get interrupted whenever I attempt to do something I enjoy. No sooner do I sit down to that great article or repose in thought at my laptop, ready to unleash a torrent of raw creative literary prowess; immediately someone's clamoring for me. So those rare moments when I'm finally alone, I like to sit down at my laptop and write ...or at least something that resembles writing. I never said I write well. Writing seems such an arrogant endeavor, as if to think I have something so important to say that someone else would actually want to read it. I enjoy reading as well but there's something about the feel of creating something new.

And so I paint!

No, Rockwell paints! Da Vinci paints. Picaso paints I merely smear paint around on a canvas in a grotesque facsimile of painting, somewhere on the level of a chimpanzee with a brush. Ok. Maybe I need a new outlet?!!

And so I write!

No, Thurber writes! Faulkner writes. Thoreau writes. I merely 'smear' words around on a blank peice of paper in a crude mimicry of writing, much like a chimpanzee with a pencil.

No matter.

Yes! My time. Sweet, delicious time to enjoy my endeavor...

Not so fast! It appears I have one more child to deal with, the four-legged one, before I can be alone. He sees my creative outlets as a distraction from my full-time job of continuously doting on him. In his canine brain, there's little difference between my laptop and say ...an unsuspecting fire hydrant!

As soon as I sit down with my rapidly dwindling repository of great ideas to write about, no sooner than a momentary spark of brilliance comes over me; here comes that lumbering brute to inject himself in the middle of my work space. Next thing you know, he's putting his front paws on the desk and trying to climb up in my lap. 15 seconds is about the time it takes me to go from waxing creative to creatively devoid. That's coincidentally about the time it takes for me to extract Cletus from my desk and try to resume work.

It's like he's saying, "What about me?!!"

I originally got a dog for companionship. It seemed like a great idea to have at least one family member that doesn't ask for money. That was before our current occupant / dependant arrived with all his neurotic baggage. Now I'm seriously considering hiring a baby-sitter just to take care of the dog. Let me reiterate, the dog is definitely neurotic. Sometimes, it's like a scene right out of the movie, "What About Bob?" only this time Bill Murray is a 120 pound, six-foot tall Great Dane!

I wonder if there's such a thing as doggie-day care?

 It appears I have one more child to deal with, the four-legged one.