Seated around the dinner table is a charming family-of-four. Their scruffy but adorable dog is sitting in his bed in the corner of the room. Chinese takeout containers are scattered across the table. A scintillating conversation is underway. Shhhhh! Let’s listen in…
Son (while glancing at the dog seated silently in his bed awaiting any chicken-y tidbits anyone…anyone…anyone wants to toss his way) says: I wonder what the dog thinks about all day.
Loving-not-to-mention-funny-and-pretty-mother-everyone-says-so (who desperately wanted Sonny to design a study around whether dogs could see colors for his Science Fair Project and is still smarting from the fact that he ended up going with “how quickly a sugar cube dissolves in a variety of sodas” and if we’re being truthful, he chose that particular experiment not to further the scientific body of knowledge, but mostly because he wanted to drink the sodas after the experiment was over) replies with: Hmmm. That’s an interesting question. How could you design an experiment to discover that? I’m thinking something around remote observation…
Hubby interjects: Hey, I know what you could do. Teach the dog to write. Then give him a piece of paper and pencil and ask him to write what he thinks about all day.
Sonny (throwing the stink eye his father’s way. This has been a point of contention all along: that the dog is “lucky” and doesn’t have to go to school, while Sonny does have to suffer this daily torture with the pencils and paper and such) responds: You know it’s been proven that dogs have souls!!?
Sissy lending her insight to the conversation: Oh yeah? Who proved it?? Yo-yo Boy*?!
Sonny: No! Pope FRANCIS!
-Silence ensues. Everyone knows Pope Francis didn’t “prove” that thing about the dogs. But all joking aside, the realization dawns on the happy group seated at the table that despite how many times Hubby calls Sonny by the dog’s name and vice versa, and despite how they joke about the boy and the dog being almost one and the same, the son draws WAY more parallels to the dog’s life his own self than the family ever could. See how he worries what the dog thinks about all day? See how he’s preoccupied with the question of the dog’s soul?-
The Loving-not-to-mention-funny-and-pretty-mother-everyone-says-so sees the true heart of the matter and in her wise and insightful way closes the conversation with: It seems to me that the dog probably thinks about the same stuff YOU think about all day, Sonny. He probably thinks about what’s for dinner and will any friends show up soon. He also probably thinks about when he’s gonna go outside next, and where he’s gonna pee once he gets there.
[End Scene]
The camera pans away from the family as they move out of range of the soft glow of the overhead light. The camera zooms in on the dog’s face. The dog is still seated in his bed long after the family has cleared away their dinner. Still there, hoping for some chicken-y tidbits to come his way. Or any of the breakfast meats would be good too. Bacon, sausage, ham. Anyone…anyone…anyone….
*Yo-yo Boy is a pseudonym for Sonny’s bestie. He got Sonny into yo-yo’ing, and he typically has some developed opinion on things. Except when we get to hear about his opinion second-hand through Sonny, things always seem a bit…er…lost in translation, shall we say? And you understand that we don’t actually CALL him Yo-yo Boy when referring to him in casual conversation amongst ourselves or to his face; We call him by his real name. We’re only calling him Yo-yo Boy today for blog purposes and so as to protect his professional reputation. Although now that I think about it, Yo-yo Boy has a nice ring to it. Yo-yo Boy. Yo-yo Boy. Yeah. That’s good. That has real potential. It also sounds like a Frozen Yogurt place where boys can go and get frozen yogurt while showing off their yo-yo tricks. So that’s a plus.