Coyotes and Schiavo TV

Mom is so neurotic. She's totally paranoid about us being ripped to shreds by wild hungry beasts.

This week there are houseguests from France living in all of the bedrooms. Whenever we have houseguests, Mom gets nervous about us getting out and being eaten by coyotes. Mom has put big signs on all the doors in the house that say: PLEASE KEEP DOOR CLOSED BECAUSE COYOTES ARE HUNGRY. DO NOT LET ANIMALS OUTSIDE.

These signs are useless because people never read the signs and they leave doors open all over the place. Mom doesn't realize that we don't like to go out without our people anyway and the Stupid Kitty doesn't dare to go past the driveway when she sneaks out. She's too much of a coward to go anywhere. Still, Mom has horrified the houseguests with details of cats she knows who were ripped limb from limb in the neighborhood and screaming Maltese dogs being murdered right in front of their helpless owners by gangs of bloodthirsty coyotes. Mom thinks up all kinds of scenarios, like a hawk swooping down and sinking its claws into Stupid Kitty and then pulling her up into a tree to devour her. I like that scenario.

Mom: "You'll hear the coyotes at least once a week in the middle of the night. You'll hear the pack howling like this: Aiyah! Ya! Ya! And then you'll hear the bloodcurdling screams of a little cat or dog dying. It's awful. We hear it all the time."

It's true, we have heard a few gruesome sounds out there in the dark but I wish Mom would learn how to relax and accept life as it comes. We're not stupid enough (Finn and I) to go looking for trouble in the woods up here in the middle of the night. Mom should eat a giant bowl of yummy food and then take a nap in the sun and stop filling her mind with visions of our entrails spilling out all over the floor because we're all going to die one day anyway, and it'll be much later and it won't be so bloody and crazy. We'll all just get old and fall into a giant sleepytime that we won't wake up from.

I REALLY like one of the houseguests. He's Mom's godson, so in a way, he's related to me. His name is Marco but Mom calls him Marco-Schiavo because he sleeps most of the day, just like me. When he's awake, he's so much fun because he thinks like a dog. Nothing matters except what's happening right now. He knows the important question in life: Is it fun?

I wish he would take me with him when he goes out so I could party with him. He must be the top dog in the Hollywood nightclub scene because he's tall and has really long eyelashes with huge eyes that are the color of grass after the rain. He wants to live in Hollywood and become a writer, which means I'll get to hang out with him.

Marco-Schiavo sneezes a lot so Mom makes him wear rubber gloves when he checks his e-mails on her computer in case he's contagious. He and Mom laugh all the time and they have been hanging around the pool together, writing a horror movie about a sweet-looking grandmother who is a pedophile sex offender.

I think Marco-Schiavo might be sneezing alot because Stupid Kitty sneaks into his room and rubs her ass all over his clothes when he's sleeping.

Lately, the TV has been on non-stop with what Dad calls "Schiavo TV" or "Schiavo Vision".

Dad: "I want to Tivo Schiavo so we can watch the mellon without commercial interruption."

I don't know who this Schiavo woman is or how she became a bigger TV star than "Everybody loves Raymond" along with a guy named Pope but Dad makes fun of them all the time. At the dinner table, he grabs the back of Mom's head and she makes the Schiavo face, blinking and slackjawed. Mom goes limp and Dad moves her head around as if she were saying yes or no by nodding it forward or side to side, making everybody laugh.

Dad:"Listen to me mellon, are you hungry? Would you like a meat injection? No? What about this? You like this?"

Then Dad jabs Mom in the ribs with his finger. Mom squeals with laughter and slaps Dad on his bald head.

Mom: "STOP! STOP! You can't finger her in the feeding tube hole! You can't!"