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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