Every weird thing the dog eats comes out oddly intact from his other end.  Where…a LOT of times…it gets stuck.  Half in.  Half out.

The other day it was a piece of twine (which looked like a limp-noodle-secondary-tail hanging down underneath the dog’s bobbed-primary-tail).

While only four inches of the twine was visible to the naked eye, upon further investigation, it turns out the piece of twine was ACTUALLY 9 inches long (a total guesstimate, puh-lease!  I’m not THAT crazy!!).

The whole time the “twine extraction process” was underway, I could practically HEAR the circus music in the background.  I was playing the role of the clown pulling the never-ending silk scarf out of the…er…sleeve.  Duhn duhn duh duh duh duh DUHN duhn duh DUH!

During these instances when the clown is pulling the silk scarf out of the…er…sleeve, the dog always acts like the clown is actually trying to POKE IT BACK IN!  So he rears up (heh, heh, heh – pun intended), bats the clown with his front paws and in general acts like the clown was trying to take his maidenhood by force.  At the END (heh, heh, heh – ANOTHER intended pun – me funny), all embarrassed, the dog skulks away to another room.  Which is fine because the clown is skulking the other way – to dispose of whatever brackish seaweed has been extracted (NOT measure it, ya loons!).

So to get to the BOTTOM (funny) of things – you discover that what is really BEHIND (funny) all of this is that the dog has been a GREAT addition to the family.   ‘Cept for all that clownin’ around.

Yeah.  ‘Cept for that.  Let’s make no ifs, ands, or BUTTS [still funny] about THAT!

The fifty gazillionth “Thanks, but no thanks – we’ve decided to pursue other candidates for our open job position” postcard I just received today causes me to pause and reflect on my career options.  At which point I realize I’m actually really, really lucky.

What?!  LUCKY?!?  (we’re up all NIGHT to get lucky).   Well — I can really only use the word “lucky” when I compare my job opportunities to those of women long ago.  Oh…say…during Game of Thrones time.

There were very limited options for women back then.  Let’s see, there was:

• queen
• whore
• Lady of Winterfell
• miller’s wife
• whore
• chambermaid
• kitchen wench
• whore
• crofter’s daughter
• baker’s wife
• crone
• spearwife (it’s a whole thing I can’t get into now)

Very few of those jobs have any appeal.  Except for Queen (natch!).  Do you think if 1) Game of Thrones was REAL and 2) set in an accessible part of the world, not in middle earth during dragon times and 3) they had invented universities by then and 4) allowed women to attend said universities and 5) invented advanced degrees and 6) then allowed women to GET advanced degrees, that my having an MBA would make me a BETTER candidate for the Queen role?

No.  I didn’t think so either.  But the “thanks, but no thanks” postcards would have been much more interesting: all parchment-y with awesome calligraphy sent by carrier pigeon or some such.

Gaaahhhhhh……

Have I told you I’m reading the Game of Thrones book?  It’s a 4-part, THREE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED FIFTY SIX page nightmare borrowed from the air above my local library and loaded onto my Nook.

Except the problem is that it’s THREE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED FIFTY SIX PAGES and the frickin’ thing keeps expiring before I can finish it.  I was up to page 2,114 last night and when I got the chance to finally sit down at 10 pm to read it, I discovered that the air library is apparently set to Eastern Standard Time and my book vanished yet again into the clouds.  Gaaaahh!!!

So I instantly re-upped for another go-round.  And this time I’m 49 on the waiting list (hey!  I’ve been 78 before, so things are looking up!)

Also on the plus side, I have learned some new words.  (Well, yes, of course swear words as a result of the ill-timed expirations.  But I mean REAL words that the world no-longer-uses-but-which-should-be-brought-back-into-fashion-because-they’re-really-good-words.)  I’ll list the words AND I’ll use them in a sentence so you can get the gist of them in case you’d never heard of them until now:

• hippocras – “Ser Jaime will have the red, Lady Brienne of Tarth will have water, and I will have hippocras,” said Roose Bolton of the Dread Fort with the Flayed Man sigil shining brightly on his tunic.
• slaver – “After King Robb’s direwolf ripped out the throat of an elk, its jaws ran red with slaver.”
• wroth – “The Lord of Harrenhal was sore wroth when he saw the destruction the dragons had wrought on the highest tower of his castle.”
• greaves – “The Knight of Roses, Loras Tyrell, had gauntlets, greaves and greathelm made of hammered gold inlaid with twining roses.”
• doughty – “It is said that Neddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, was truly doughty the day on the Trident when he helped Robert Baratheon win his throne from the mad Targaryen king.”
• samite – “Queen Cersei’s robe of green-and-gold samite shimmered in the firelight as did her golden hair where it tumbled down her back.”
• argot – “Daenerys Stormborn, Mother of Dragons, could actually understand the words of the man speaking High Valyrian even though it was flavored with slaver argot.”

And for the record…NO, I don’t go to the Renaissance Faire.  That’s for dorks.  Reading Game of Thrones is for cool chicks from New Jersey who are trying to figure out how to use up their new stay at home mom days, thank you very much.

Ok…there is something SERIOUSLY wrong at Costco.  How does THIS (see picture on LEFT of teeeeeny tiny list) become THIS (see picture on RIGHT of HUGE $75 receipt)??!

See??  Something is seriously wrong….right??!

In all fairness, perhaps it’s not so much COSTCO as me AT COSTCO.  I’ll tell you how it happens.  Trust me, I’ve thoroughly analyzed this phenomenon and have come up with the following grid to help you understand how it all goes down.  Each and every time.  Down.  Every.  Time.

I call it the Fantasy vs. Reality Phenomenon: