When Humans and Dogs Collide:

Negotiations for Todays Changing Times

This morning I decided to find myself. I originally looked forward to the spiritual journey
that would define who I was as a person. But then I looked into my mirror and realized
that the person I saw in that mirror was me. So I then figured, why spend all this time
finding myself when I already know where I am?

Since I allotted around 80 years for this quest and finished it in about eight seconds, I had
some free time that I needed to devote to a cause. I had a great idea: I would purposely
drop a dog so that the owner of that dog would ask me what I was doing, to which I could
respond, "Well, my cause was to see your reaction and my effect was, indeed, your
reaction." This would make my cause and effect almost the same. But I had to give up on
trying this experiment, because - after all - where would I possibly find a dog?

Dogs are funny individuals in that people claim to love them, but when it comes down to
it, we have so many negative terms which revolve around them. For example, if you are
told that you are being sent to the doghouse, that doesn't mean you are being tossed to an
area of luxury. More so, you will be sent to the same place as the dog, some small area
consisting of a leaky roof and a food bowl. Although owners try to convince their dogs
that this is some sort of fantasy land, the reality is that most owners wouldn't want to
spend more than 15 minutes in one. Those who do spend more than 15 minutes are only
doing so because they are stuck in the location...

On the other hand, we also have the sporting statement, "Hey, buddy, I dogged you in
that race." Of course the statement can exist without the "hey, buddy," but what fun
would that be? Such a statement means, basically, that one person defeated the other in a
race in such a way that a dog would defeat a human. Now, this is the opposite of the
doghouse reputation, because here the dogs are given more credit than humans as
opposed to less. This could only mean one thing: the dogs negotiated this with the
humans in order to assure respect from the general populace...

But who are these dogs? And, more importantly, who were the humans asked to
negotiate? I don't have a problem with dogs, but if we are going to negotiate with them, I
think we should send some of our best humans to do so. Otherwise, imagine the potential
chaos:

Human: Okay, so let's negotiate here.

Dog: How about you give us the power to speak, like I am right now, and we will allow
you to rename tree covering to "speak" instead of "bark"?
Human: You are too fair. Let's do that immediately. But to make sure you are not getting
ripped off, we will throw in some table scraps from an all-you-can-eat-restaurant where
everyone thinks they are bigger eaters than they really are.

Dog: Agreed.

Human: Bark!

But I digress.

Greg Gagliardi is a teacher and writer. His stream-of-consciousness weekly humor

column, "Progressive Revelations," has been ongoing since 1998.
(http://www.ProgressiveRevelations.com)

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