Dumb Past Time

Have you ever taken the time to just sit down and stare at your dog as he sleeps peacefully in the middle of your living room?

No? Heck, you don’t know what you’re missing.

Now if you have tried staring at him patiently for fifteen minutes, have you ever acted on that urge to pick up a blade of grass and tickle his nostrils with it?

No? Smart.

Doing that will just annoy the living heck out of your prized pooch and he may just pick up your favorite DVD and turn it into a chew toy just to annoy you back.

Well, have you ever tried annoying your cat with the same blade of grass?

No? Darn, you’re definitely smarter than I am.

I should have quit while I was ahead with my dog. But bugging my friend’s cat was something I couldn’t resist. It also is probably the dumbest thing I have done, given yesterday’s canine experience.

Not only did kitty rip my sleeve to shreds, she scratched the living heck out of my hand. Oh, and she almost bit me.

Bad kitty. Serves me right though.

But was it worth it? Oh, yeah!

Filipino Saying

Filipinos have a saying that goes, “Asarin mo na lang ang lasing, huwag ang bagong gising.” Loosely translated, it means go you can annoy someone who’s drunk, but not someone who just woke up.

Now since I shouldn’t do that to people, you may be wondering why I even try it with animals when they are in deep sleep.

Well, the quick answer to that is… you know, I haven’t gotten the foggiest idea.

But give me a minute; nope give me an hour to think about it.

Alright, after some deep, deep thought, would say it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

Past Time as a Teenager

When I said that bugging the cat was the worst thing I ever did, I guess I failed to recall the other animals I bugged in the last few years.

There was that wasp hive.

Ouch. Not my best work, nor did it have a good result. My ears and lips were swollen for days because of multiple stings.

Then there was that ant mound.

That one was alright as I kept them at bay for about thirty minutes before a kamikaze soldier got in to my shorts.

Yow. It hurts just thinking about it.

Then there was the time I used a longer blade of grass on a monkey in a cage.

Boy was he mad. He was so mad, he peed on me from inside the cage. Talk about being pissed!

Past Time as a Child

Even as a boy, I remembered bugging the sleeping Cockatoo of my aunt. It got so mad that when it bit me, his beak went through my fingernail.

Of course I cried a river and my aunt bandaged me up pretty good. But I never stopped plotting my revenge on old Polly.

So when I got the chance, picked up a Number One Mongol pencil and started poking him as he slept.

The only time I stopped was when Polly got hold of my pencil and literally ripped it to shreds.

I was both shocked and afraid. It was awesome!

Needless to say, I never did that again since I had nightmares of him working on my fingers as I slept. So when Polly finally went to that circus in the sky, I heaved a sigh of relief.

Strange, I do kinda miss him now…

Oh, and don’t get me started on that lion cub. I promised my Mom a long time ago that it wouldn’t be brought up ever again.

Back to the Present

So here I am, nursing a badly scratched hand as I type this article.

But don’t worry. It really isn’t as bad as it sounds. What was bad was when I took a shower a while ago. Now that was real pain.

Just when I thought the medicine had killed off all the pain, the trickling hot shower made me realize that the Discovery Channel wasn’t wrong when they said there are a lot of nerves in human hands.

Lesson

So have I learned my lesson yet?

You bet I have.

That Filipino saying is there for a reason. It’s proven, having withstood the test of time for many generations.

Anyone would be wise to follow it.

So today, I resolve not to bug any animals with blades of grass, newspapers, or stuff on a string. This covers pets and all forms of livestock, such as cows, goats, turkeys, and geese.

And above all, I firmly resolve not to end up winning the top prize on America’s dumbest videos as that would really be the height of my stupidity.

Darn. Gotta find me a new hobby now as this is gonna get really boring.

Perhaps I should devote my time to science. Anybody have an extra chemistry set lying around?…