Eventually the anger evaporates and you’re left confused and cold, unsure of how the hand soap got it’s own daytime talk show and you got indicted on three counts of improper sitting.
You can’t go home again.

I CAN’T GET INTO TOO MUCH DETAIL ABOUT OLD RISCO’S ULTIMATUM – YOU KNOW, THE ONE HE FORCES ON ANYONE NEW TO TOWN – OTHER THAN TO SAY THAT HIS THREAT OF LAYING HIS ENTIRE BODY WEIGHT DOWN UPON YOU SHOULD YOU FAIL IS, IN FACT, TRUE.

What many people who aren’t from here don’t realize is that our soil is different. Digging down less than a foot reveals not dark, hard clay or brown growing soil, but instead small, neon-colored pebbles and stones used to line aquariums. The upper peninsula’s steep rock outcroppings offer the best view of these layers. Neon Pink, Yellow and Orange are near the top and grow some of the best lard beets available while blues and purples are deeper, surrounding most of the inland water table. All colors are sweet to the taste except for the silver stones which have a metallic-egg taste. The soil is probably the result of the healing and buffeting powers of the great lakes god Jon-Jon. Scientists have plenty of theories about how our soil got to be this way but we all know...

The Inflatable Octopus sits in the corner chair of the living room. It is orange with cartoon eyes and a painted on beak. It is filled with high-atmosphere nitrogen gas and so has never wilted nor sagged over its fifteen year stay.
I do not cover it with a cloth or blanket but I do refrain from directly acknowledging it in front of company. The Inflatable Octopus and I are not enemies but we have nothing left to say to each other.
I’m glad I ate all of that Undersea Star-Town Cereal, glad that I sent in the box tops, glad I got one last use out of the electric air pump, glad to have the Octopus in all major family portraits. It’s just…
It’s just a much longer ride than I signed up for.

Updates here at Human Dog will remain sparse through the end of the week due to all of the rodeo activity in town. A series of public falling outs, scandal, and uncontrolled ego have led to three concurrent, competing rodeos in town this fall. Loyalties are divided, relationships are stressed, eye contact is low, changing the subject is high.
Into the midst of this human drama is now thrown 48 crazed, ugly, rabid bulls. Each one with more power than a thousand suns. Each one eager to devour the beating heart of our finest Northern Cowboys. Sooner or later there’s going to be an “accident.” Sooner or later one of these things is going to get loose.
Thank god I still have a working jet pack.