I believe that, in a previous column or two, I’ve introduced y’all to my roommate and bodyguard, Good Dog Henry. We have a strategic alliance whereby I keep his food dish full, and he lets me know when someone is at the door.
Henry has a slightly different sounding bark for each type of visitor; one for two-legged visitors, one for the neighbor’s dog who either wants Henry to come out and play or a dog biscuit, and one particularly hungry and vicious bark for employees of the United States Postal Service.
And he has a generic bark for unnamed (and apparently invisible) existential threats that show up on our doorstep several times a day. When I open the door, there’s nothing there, and Good Dog Henry has this look on his face that says, “See! I scared ‘em away!”
I scratch my head and wonder just what sort of porchful of doom Henry saved us from with his timely warning. Aside from the usual ghost zombies come to munch our brains, or phantom ecumenical proselytizers sent to help us mend our ways, here is my list of evil entities that Henry has saved us from so far.
1. Colorado commies who have been dispatched northward to appropriate our means of production and best fishing spots in the name of a vast, green proletarian conspiracy of the masses. Scary sonsabitches, make no mistake.
2. Elite coastal celebrities hell bent on desecrating our churches while they force us to eat raw vegetables and drink white California wine with our pinkies stuck out. They are determined to replace Yahweh with Alec Baldwin, and they have enough Soros/Hollywood money to make a good run at it.
3. Meal Team Six, or some similar overfed, hillbilly shock troops who want to eliminate Henry and me so they can use our abode as a forward position for the Big Boogaloo. They are hungry for the scalps of 1 and 2 above, and thirsty for the blood of anyone who believes that Trump lost.
4. A coven of lesbian wiccans leery of anything male (even if, as in Henry’s case, the family jewels were removed long ago). These ol’ gals don’t want to murder us, just tie us up, gag us and leave us in the corner. These brujas stir their cauldron and chant esoteric prayers, hoping to entice Meal Team Six to ring the doorbell so the real fun can begin.
5. FBI goons in windbreakers, skinny ties and bad haircuts, with orders to seize our arsenal and any classified documents that Henry may have brought home from work. These gomers don’t even knock! The Patriot Act is a scary sumbitch, too.
6. Moms for Liberty and their inquisitor Karens who ransack our dojo, looking for smut. When they find Henry’s stash of Hustlers, and well-thumbed and dog-eared copies of my own personal porn, “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Catcher in the Rye”, they build a bonfire of the vanities out on the sidewalk and dance around it like their sisters in #4 above.
7. The guy on the Grassy Knoll, the Zodiac Killer or Jeffrey Epstein’s malevolent, invisible cellmate. Sometimes Henry barks so frantically that all three of ‘em must be on our doorstep.
But every time I open the door, the stoop is empty. And Good Dog Henry grins as if to say, “Whew! We cheated death again!”
Lately, though, things have taken an ominous turn.
Henry has been barking nonstop for days now. Urgently. Incessantly. I haven’t even worked up the gumption to open the door to see what’s there. I realize its probably nothing but, in uncertain times like these, you can’t be too careful.
There are so many things out there that really don’t exist but still scare the bejeezus out of you. Its good to have a barking dog to keep them all at bay.
But we’re running out of staples – dog chow, PBR and Copenhagen – and it just doesn’t feel safe enough to go to the gettin’ place to restock. I hope what isn’t out there goes away soon. I hope Good Dog Henry and I don’t starve because we’re afraid of invisible zombies.
