The Animals

Frank had a blue Siamese cat named Ming who was a complete wack job. She would fix you with a psychotic stare and then do a back flip--until she got too fat. Then she would just sit on top of the TV set, with her tail swishing down while you were trying to watch Bugs Bunny. I felt sorry for Frank because he didn’t have a dog—it didn’t seem natural. But my dog was also a little nuts. We called him Rick for short, but his full name was Ricochet, because of the way he would take a fit and start zooming around the house bouncing off the walls. He was a poodle, but I preferred to ignore that fact. If you didn’t give him one of those stupid poodle haircuts with the pom-poms he just looked like a normal, shaggy dog with hair in his eyes, and that’s the way he liked it. But whenever he had to get a haircut his fur would be shaved close and the lady at the kennel couldn’t stop herself from putting a little pom-pom on the end of his tail and another on top of his head. She would paint his toenails too. When he got home he would stand outside shivering in the breeze, hanging his head and looking ashamed. Mike had a friendly old sad-eyed brown mutt named Jeannie.