"I see your point and raise you a counterpoint:

"I see your point and raise you a counterpoint: you are a massive doo-doo head." Debate Club had gone to the dogs. I quietly padded my résumé in the corner, sipping a soda.

It was a Royal Crown. I drank this soda to remind me of Charmaine. Sweet Charmaine. Her kisses tasted like peach cobbler. I was so in love with her and I was stuck in the South.

And I was stuck in the South because I was a character in a Flannery O'Connor short story. I blubbered at my misfortune, sipping RC & Crown Royal, lamenting my lost Charmaine and

my dog. Being stuck in a short story is just one step up from being stuck in a fold. Back and forth wondering how to say more. Trading out adjectives and deleting

verbs, nouns, but did any of it matter? Would anybody know they were there, stuck? Would anybody care? Even the dog wouldn't be very interested, probably.

The dog was busy running his Etsy business... On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog. He could sell customised wrapping paper and resin earrings without confusing the humans.

with the whole "are the sentient beings besides humans, canines even?" But somewhere along the way caution flew to the wind. He started selling macramed beef bones on his etsy site

which turned out to be very popular as plant hangers until bands of roving dogs tore them from people's porches and chewed them to bit, leaving only the plants. Macramed beef bones

and little notes in dog calligraphy suggesting that we don't hang those again, or else. We recognized the threat that it was and did what we had to do. We're going to the funeral.

The event was sombre. The grey skies above marking the end of the bright times in our lives. We stood silently, side by side as the casket was lowered into the ground. It was over.