What did I ever do to you?

No – seriously, I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t the foggiest idea what it’s like being a dog, but I’m thinking … and this is just taking a long shot out of left field (that’s a baseball analogy, if you’ve never seen the game before) … that between laying around all day, having all of your food and water served to you, and having your own personalized escort every time you have to go to the bathroom, life can’t be all that difficult for you canines in the grand scheme of things. I never see you headed off to work early in the morning or coming home late after a long day at the office, just to put food in your family’s bowl, nor do I ever run into you at Wal-Mart, cursing all of the other idiot shoppers because they wouldn’t know aisle etiquette if it hit them square in the tail. Frankly, I don’t know where all of your pent up frustration comes from because for all I can tell, you’re living on easy street and you’ve even got a guy to clean up after you!

That said, I have but one question for you on this otherwise pleasant evening – what’s with all the damn barking?!

Day in, day out – you never stop. And I don’t even mean “never” sarcastically, as in you do it an awful lot, but in the actual literal sense of the word. Your doggy vocal cords must be made out of some sort of super-advanced, space-age alloy because if I spent half of the time yelling that you do barking, I’d have the worst case of laryngitis the medical community has ever seen…

…and more importantly, I should note – I’d also be out of an apartment because my disgustingly courteous neighbors, even in their seemingly infinite kindness, still wouldn’t be able to tolerate such obnoxious, constant noise. You see, here in the human world, we’ve got this thing called etiquette that we try to live by to keep from wanting to strangle one another in our sleep. It covers everything from cleaning up after yourself when you somehow manage to spill have a gallon of ice cream in the middle of the sidewalk, not sleeping with your neighbor’s wife no matter how hot she is compared to whatever you settled for, and just between you and me, one of the big ones is also the noise factor. This means that while it would certainly be convenient for you to watch The Neverending Story on your big, manly sound system or get to work on retiling the bathroom floor at 3:00am, you would nonetheless hold off on such activities until the next day because your neighbors may very well be trying to sleep during these ungodly hours of the night.

I’m writing you this evening because, while the laws of the human world don’t traditionally apply to mutts like yourselves, and I mean that in the nicest possible way, I was hoping that you might throw me a bone here and make it feasible for me to not strangle your owners in their sleep over being such inanely inconsiderate jerks. I mean, I know that you’re just a dog, but then again, Benji and Underdog were also just dogs and look at all of the amazing things that they both were able to accomplish in their own respective careers! Surely you can see where I’m coming from that after a long and arduous day of doing nothing, a nice, relaxing evening of silence would be like an everlasting supply of Beggin’ Strips or a good, long scratch right behind the ears where you just can’t quite reach yourself – simply divine, to say the very least.

Really, all I ask is for a break in the ongoing chatter every now and then. I know that you’ve still got needs when it comes to accosting the UPS delivery guy or those weird friends that the kids sometimes bring home from school, and I’m certainly not trying to step on your paws in those regards. I’m simply asking that for those lesser events, such as when the wind blows or when I change the channel on my TV across the hall, you take a pass and save up those ferocious barks of yours for a more suitable occasion. And you know what? When your owners come stumbling in stone-cold drunk at 2:00am, tripping over shoes and waking up the entire building, by all means go to town! I’m all for sticking it to those who’ve got it coming and believe you me, their intoxicated meanderings have gotten on my nerves a time or three as well…

…but in the same right, I think you can agree that you really don’t have a beef with me. I’ve never personally stepped on your tail or rubbed your nose in your own poo – I’d never do that to you. I’m sure this all probably just some sort of misunderstanding and one day in the not-so-distant future we’ll laugh about it over a bowl of toilet water and some of those fake cheese snausages that you love so much. But before we rejoice and share in such camraderie, I’ve got to get some sleep, so if you could just do me this one little favor and keep it down to a dull roar, that’d be mighty neighborly of you.

Yours from across the hall,
– Scott

P.S. This may be a tall order, but if you could also please not poop in my sandals when I leave them outside the door to dry off, I’d appreciate it…