I used to be a private detective

The work was alright, but the office secret santa was pretty intense.

Fraidy Dog

My dog is not a brave dog. There is one thing in particular, which she is particularly not brave about.  This is a thing that scares her to her core, and she is never prepared for it.  Take an average day - my dog’s just chilling doing normal dog stuff, thinking dog stuff.

She is totally relaxed.  Totally carefree until you go near the cabinet where our family contains our board games.  The second she spots someone near there she freezes and stares, with every nerve on edge. 

 

She knows exactly what is in that cupboard, knows all too well of the horror it contains.  And when that door is open she is tense with fear. She knows that what game you choose can change her life.   As you pull out a game her body begins to shake, and her fight-or-flight-but-realistically-always-flight response begins to kick in.

 

When she sees the game she retreats in terror.  Her tail tucked between her unsteady legs, she finds a couch to hide under, and will stay there shaking for hours.  What game has caused this terror?  Why only the most frightening game of all time.

 

To fully understand how much my dog fears Jenga, you have to imagine yourself as a dog, and there’s a giant thunderstorm on national balloon popping day, and you got to take a bath.  And the people giving you the bath are the vet who took away your ability to reproduce and the vacuum who surely has committed similar atrocities.   That horrific scenario would only provide about a tenth of the fear my dog feels for Jenga.  And no one knows why Jenga scares her so.  And interestingly, no other board game has any effect on her whatsoever.  

 

Now trying to understand this has been difficult to me.  Why would Jenga scare my dog?  The first thought I had is that maybe the noise of it falling scares her or maybe it fell on her once.  But the game is fairly quiet.  And considering being constantly kicked hasn’t stopped her from continually running under people’s feet, it’s hard to believe a 2 ounce Jenga piece would be very damaging.  My next thought was that maybe her prior owners had somehow mentally scarred her with Jenga when she was a puppy so badly, that her fear would stick with her forever.  But it’s tough to imagine just how creative and cruel the previous owners would have to be to cause such Jenga related terror, and since they seemed like nice people, I dismissed that theory too.

 

 My next theory was that she is dumb.  She is a dog and she believes that Jenga is dangerous.  She has no logical basis for thinking this, and all the evidence to the contrary won’t change her mind because she is dumb.  

 

I held this theory for quite a while, but eventually television would show me that I was wrong.  You see, animals are naturally in tune with the paranormal according to late night Animal Planet shows and science fiction movies.   So it turns out that my dog had felt something about the Jenga, and was trying to warn us.  

 So I did a little research and it turns out the Jenga pieces come from Alder trees, which were a favored tree of the Druids.  The druid's believed the Alder tree possessed magical powers and would grow very upset if you cut them down for board games.  Rumor has it that some of the trees were cursed, so that in cutting them down, death would follow all who touched the wood.  A hidden slow death, that only a dog could see coming. 

The Next Big Thing

My latest million dollar is hand soap, for men!  Every other hygienic product out there is separated by gender.  There are separate shampoos, deodorants, body wash's, tampons, why not hand soap?  All the current hand soaps have smells like "lavender", "cucumber melon", or "estrogen berry".  We need hand soap that caters to men, and our manly insecurities in scent.  That's why I'm rolling out man soap.  We will follow the tradition in male hygiene products of making up scents that aren't really scents.  Man soap smells will arise by randomly combining biomes with weather words.
Arctic Storm
Ocean Wind
Desert Lightning
Deciduous Forest Cold Front
Are just some of the hand soap scents we will be rolling out.

Plus if you have man soap in your bathroom than women will HAVE to believe you wash your hands after you piss. 

Gatherings

Some people call them "parties" or "hang outs" but I prefer the term, "Live Action Social Networking"