A dog eat cat world, or my dreamscape

This was inspired by randomly changing the channel and landing on America's Funniest Home Videos. Just so happened that a pretty-hilarious clip of a cat suckerpunching a dog across the jaw was underway, which first made me giggle but then I became a bit tight. Heated. Perturbed. How dare that lousy pussy resort to such trickery and chump-style tactics? Got me thinking.....


What the fuck?! Oh hell no...this dog needs to tag me in, like now.

Cats are overrated. Little emotionless balls of fur. Scallywags. Placed upon pedestals of loyalty without deserving such distinction. Really, felines possess, as a whole, the personalities of a litter box: fresh and clean only when tended to; otherwise, they're rank and foul. Purring against your leg, giving you those loving eyes. You stroll over to the pussy's food-and-water corner of the room, and see cobwebs and penny-sized puddles. Son of a bitch, you're only being nice to me 'cause you're hungry enough to vomit a hairball and immediately treat it like digestable catnip.

I see through the manipulative ways of the feline. There's always exceptions, of course. Tigger, my first "Matt's pet," first given to me as a Christmas gift when I was six years old, was one damn fine animal. Full of personality, and genuine in his bonding. He'd rest on my chest with a full bowl of grub, no question. But then there was my brother's jerkoff cat Bubba ('cause he was a fat piece of shit; as obvious as the name appears), who treated me like some inferior being, which resulted in various torture methods inflicted by yours truly. None too malicious or damaging---there was that age-old trick where you hold a cat by the hair around its neck, and it's rendered motionless, but able to flash a fuck you stare that's piercing in its anger and discontent.

As shown here.


Though, I was always more partial to chasing Bubba's tub-of-lard frame around the house with overflowing Super Soaker. Me, the bounty hunter; Bubba, my prey. Role Reversal 101.


Now, that's more like it.

Perhaps my need for instant recognition and fawning from loved ones plays into my underlying sense of insecurity. The untouchable, unfuckwitable lack of head-to-toe confidence that's plagued me since the early grade school days of my older brother calling me "Megan" and tormenting me in front of my close female friend Allison. Must block out memory, must look past, must overcome.

Whatever the reason, whether it services my self-inflicted inferiority complex or not, the feeling of receiving warmth and exciteable love on the second of sight is tremendous, and nobody's---man or beast---shown me such God's-honest adoration than Zoey, German Shepherd extraordinaire, the best dog ever, and my ride-or-die pooch. Those days when I stumbled around high school's hallways feeling as if I was a pinball ricocheting from one cooler guy to the next out-of-my-league lady, followed by scary bus rides home where everybody else on board chatted up rainstorms while I cowered in my seat, headphones on bumping Ghostface Killah's "Assassination Day"? Zoey was right there, front door and center, waiting for my return, jumping on lap and licking on face as soon as my Jansport hit table. The sports games where I'd had a 0-4 batting day or missed a couple of easy, loss-causing lay-ups, uncontested, only to endure rides home with my dad offering constructive and insightful criticism that hit my ears like rebel forces launching doomsday missiles? Zoey was there still, acting like a game of pull-chew-toy was a gift from the canine gods.

She didn't tickle my in-need-of-innocent-idolatry bone to acquire a snausage, or only when nature called nonstop like Bill Lumberg and threatened to soil my parents' precious carpet. All she wanted was to kick it with her pal, the guy who pet her without pretense, and treated her like she was Sheeba, Queen of the Animal Kingdom. And, yes, Zoey is the greatest dog, ever. But regardless, the fact that she is a dog is the explanation for her wonderful demeanor. Like cats, there's always exceptions to this dog rule, but scumbag pups are the minority. It's a dog-eat-dog world, only in the metaphorical sense. Not literally. Cats? Let 'em go cannibal.


One guess which side I'm on....let's rig that shit.

Zoey's gradually passing her torch to the godchildren these days (sadly, she's getting old, 'tis the fucked-up cycle of life), though Big Zo hasn't lost a step in her own right. Not one inch. But the Gianna/Nick duo makes every Thursday night (and occasional weekend afternoon) feel like I just won the lotto, with those smiles they flash my way, and the "No, I want Matt to [do it]" requests Baby G issues.

Little kids and dogs. If every dickhead and fucknut in the world was replaced by one or the other, this would be a nirvana, tangible rather than dreamlike. Imagine that.