A few months ago I started up a second job with Department of Corrections writing contracts for their prison construction projects. It's every bit as exciting as it sounds. I just go in for 3 hours after work Monday through Friday and 5 hours on Saturday. It's an extra 20 hours of overtime a week, so it's good for some extra cash. This is unrelated to the story really.

Back around Christmas time, I decided to skip out on going in to do overtime so I could go in and discuss refinance options on my house. After going by the bank, I promptly headed home hoping to be able to get all my gifts wrapped as it would be my only chance before Christmas. Upon my arrival at home I walked in to the wafting odor of doggy diarrhea. The cause of the loosened bowels was scattered about the living room floor in the form of DOZENS of small gold and green and red pieces of tin foil and a completely empty Hershey's Kisses bag. At some point during the day, the bastard love child of myself and my special gal, Early, discovered my girlfriend's hiding place for stocking stuffers and removed the bag of Kisses. He then promptly ate the entire bag, only stopping to unwrap about half of the kisses, as evidenced by the foil-filled puke and sparkled diarrhea strategically placed in several places. To his credit, early managed to pinch it off and make it to his mat all but one time before the diarrhea exited his pulsating, uneasy rectum. Unfortunately, the one miss happened to be across the comforter of my bed, with remnants finding their way on to the pillow shams. Fantastic.

I promptly stripped the bed and washed the sheets and began cleaning up the wrappers and poop throughout the house. Early seemed to be functioning ok. Chocolate is the well known doggy-killer so I was a bit worried that he may kick the bucket on account of a complete overload of sweets. QUITE the contrary. Although he seemed a bit lazy when I first arrived home, he was probably just still ailing from an uneasy stomach. Approximately an hour or so later, the sugar high version of Early began to unfold. For some reason, the high dosage of chocolate threw his hormones in to hyper mode and he began to dryhump everything he could. One couldn't sit on the couch with their arms to the side without getting a panting, pumping dog quickly grabbing hold and thrusting his pelvis anxiously toward it. He then began to just run… and run… and run… and run… only stopping to take the occasional poop or to lay down for a 30 second rest stop before resuming the caffeine induced exercise regiment. It was quite cute for the first couple of hours but it did not stop.

Fast forward to midnight-ish when I'm trying to fall asleep to the sound of a dog doing burn-outs to and fro across the room, jumping on to the bed, jumping off the bed, running circles, running into the kitchen, running back, jumping on the bed, stopping for a 30 second rest, running to take a poop, running circles again, stopping to puke up foil, running some more. This went on NON STOP, ALL NIGHT LONG. At one point Jen switched rooms to go lay with her daughter who woke up and started hollering at some point. It was then that Early decided he wanted to make stops every three minutes at her daughter's door to scratch at it, making sure that nobody in the house was able to sleep on account of him being wired from candy. He would do this approximately every three minutes until he heard me getting out of bed at which point he would run straight at me, just in time run under my bed where he knew I wouldn't be able to reach him. This continued for about 20 minutes or so. At 3 am, this is not a welcomed game. Do you ever get so pissed at something that you can feel the anger in your arms and shoulders and back? That was me. I was FUMING with anger at Early's fun little game. After about 20 minutes of hoping he would get bored with being an a-hole, I realized he wasn't going to stop, so not wanting to have the two girls awakened by him, I set up a little baby-barrier fence across the hallway so Early wouldn't have access to her door. Without hesitation, the second I got back in to bed, he scaled the fence and resumed scratching at the door. I got back up out of bed, grabbed him, considered shaking the hellout of him, then smashing his face into a wall, but instead set him on the ground and yelled no… it's every bit as effective. I then moved the fence into the door jamb, which worked like a charm… AHHH… no more scratching sound! Early then decided since the scratching game was over, it would be a good time to shut himself in the bathroom. So I then had to get up to rescue him from his self-induced bathroom prison cell. This continued until about 20 minutes before my alarm was set to go off the next morning.

I think I now understand why the Vietnamese eat these things. I was inches from tossing him in the microwave last night.