Dog Learns It is Bad Manners To Film Action Movie in Dog-Sitter’s House*

When Columbo’s dog-sitter got home from a routine shopping trip at Target, she thought her house had been robbed.  A sofa was flipped over, and a large puddle in the hallways indicated that one or both dogs had an accident.  In the next ten minutes, she checked locks on all windows or doors and opened all closets to search for intruders before concluding that no burglary had taken place.

One Hour Earlier:

Columbo, the one-year-old Saint Bernard, was convinced he was the canine Chuck Norris and his big break in “the biz” was just around the corner.

“I was telling Lilley,” he said, referring to the dog at whose home he was staying at, “a dog just can’t wait for the right opportunity. He has to make his opportunity.  Which is why I thought of a YouTube channel.”

Lille y knew exactly where to find a videocamera in the home, so as soon as her owner went to the store, they set up the camera and began filming.

“Our story was to be told in several installments.  It’s about a dog –that would be me– with superpowers.  He’s just an ordinary dog, you see, until the makes the discovery that humans hide all the foods that would allow dogs to access their superpowers.  You know, the chocolate, the grapes, the onions, the stuff they claim is ‘poisonous,’ so we won’t become more powerful than them.”

When asked if his story was inspired by the Garden of Eden, he denied any connection, claiming he was inspired by age-old dog mythology.

The two dogs were taping their most action-packed scene –where Super Columbo realizes he has powers and zooms around the house– when they heard the sound of the car in the driveway, just as the sofa tipped over after Columbo enthusiastically launched off the sofa back.

“It wasn’t supposed to end like this.  We were supposed to wrap up filming and clean up any messes that had been created on the set.”

After Discovery:

When video camera was confiscated and the house put back in order, the dogs were put in the backyard, each of them insisting the other was guilty of creating the puddle in the hallway.

“I am not sorry we had big dreams and began filming.  I suppose it was a poor choice to do so in someone else’s home, without written consent.  In retrospect, I should have convinced my owners’ children to film and direct the film instead.”

*Sadly based off of true events.

March Book Review Club: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

When Caesar first invites Cora to run away from the Randall plantation, she says no. She is cautious, like her grandmother, Ajarry, who learned caution through her own tragedies. The second time he asks, she says yes, because she is also independent, like her mother Mabel, who was the only slave to successfully run away from the Randalls. Caesar and Cora join the underground railroad, which is a literal underground train in this novel. Cora knows little about the country, and she finds each state to be a completely different world. Her birth state of Georgia is a land of misery and evil landowners. South Carolina wears a progressive face, as Cora learns to read and live as a free woman there, but it has secrets. North Carolina is a nightmare police state, where runaway slaves are routinely hanged in the hanging tree in the town square along with those who aid them, and children turn in their parents to the gallows and neighbors turn on neighbors. Tennessee is a cursed land, ravaged by wildfires and yellow fever. Indiana is a haven, where Cora can farm the land and read books.

While Cora is on the run throughout the country, the infamous slave catcher, Ridgeway is chasing her. Ridgeway never got over his inability to capture Mabel, Cora’s mother, so he pursues Cora with all of his energy, even after Cora’s former owner dies, eliminating the possibility of a cash award. Ridgeway has a diabolical sense of irony. He purchased exactly one slave in his life, Homer, who he immediately freed and taught to read and capture runaway slaves. He is also a firm believer in Manifest Destiny. He understands the Trail of Tears and slavery to be injustices, but he simply doesn’t care, as both are in line with his vision for the country.

I did enjoy The Underground Railroad, and I do recommend it. It was creative and well-written. It is primarily written from Cora’s point of view in a close third person narration, but short chapters scattered throughout the novel portray the POV of other characters, so we also get stories of Ridgeway, of Caesar, of corrupt doctors, and of wannabe missionaries. The characters are all well-developed. Some are kind; others are monstrous; and all of them are part of a world where there are no good choices, only difficult and dangerous ones.  While this is a good read, it is a difficult one, as there is no justice for many of the characters.

Although it may be a dark book about a terrible time in our nation’s history, The Underground Railroad is a good reminder that Americans are creative and resourceful in the face of injustice. We may not have runaway slaves being rounded up in our current age, but a hunt for undocumented immigrants is on, as civil rights and women’s rights both move backwards and religious freedoms are under attack, making both creativity and sacrifice as necessary as they were in the nineteenth century.

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@Barrie Summy

 

FCC Notice: I bought my own copy.