Saddam Hussein's Dog Shot

.S. soldiers sifted through the rubble of a doghouse on the outskirts of Mosul Saturday, celebrating the successful completion of a daring raid that ended with the death of Saddam Hussein’s infamous poodle, Ralphie. Early reports indicate the soldiers were tipped off by an opportunistic local merchant intent on collecting the $5 million reward offered by the U.S. government for information leading to the death or capture of the former dictator’s prime pooch.

“Now more than ever all Iraqis can know that the former regime is gone and will not be coming back,� President Bush said, modifying slightly a sales pitch from a commercial for Dodge trucks he’d heard that morning.

“A dog that had helped oppress the Iraqi people for years has been put down, and put down with extreme prejudice,� Bush continued, possibly referencing Apocalypse Now by way of Old Yeller.

A public outcry followed when Bush made similar statements after the deaths of Saddam Hussein’s sons Odai and Qusai last week, proclaiming the regime to be history despite the fact that Saddam himself was still at large and U.S. forces were coming under attack on a daily basis. But Bush assured reporters that with the death of Hussein’s poodle, the regime really was totally gone now. Even more so than before. Bush added that Saddam himself was powerless without his bumbling pervert sons or canine best friend. Unless, of course, Saddam is captured or killed, in which case he would be revealed as an all-powerful monster capable of shooting laser beams out of his eyes.

This latest raid was an even more impressive show of force than the last, when U.S. soldiers cornered Hussein’s sons in the bedroom of a house and dispatched everything short of a tactical nuclear strike to “apprehend� the two men and a teenage boy, who were reportedly armed with two handguns, several rocks and a bad attitude. The doghouse in question, one of several “safe houses� Ralphie was known to have in the area, was hit with several Tomahawk cruise missiles and “blown completely to shit� according to military personnel. Army officials said it was too early to comment on whether or not photos of the dead poodle would be distributed to the Iraqi public as proof of his demise, since this would depend on how much of Ralphie they could successfully scrape off of a nearby tree.

Despite the optimism of the Bush administration, however, Saddam Hussein remains at large. Local rumors have Saddam disguised as everything from a very ugly woman to a butcher, baker or candlestick maker. One highly slurred report insisted the former dictator was inexplicably disguised as American diva Aretha Franklin, which would be hilarious. But for the commune’s money, this reporter says Hussein is probably roaming the countryside dressed as Osama Bin Laden, all the better to elude U.S. forces.

The local merchant who offered the tip, Kamal al-Majid, gave one quote before he was taken into protective custody and most likely transferred to the Witness Relocation Program in America.

“It was my decision that the people of Mosul had harbored this dog long enough. He stood in the way of the creation of a new Iraq at the hands of our generous pig-dog American infidel friends. Also, he shit on my sidewalk this morning and that I cannot abide! So now he must go to his great reward in the land where all bitches are in heat.�

In the interest of hilarious irony, it is this reporter’s hope that al-Majid’s new life in America somehow involves running a pet store or being involved in veterinary care in the field of loose bowels, if such a thing exists.

In related news Sunday, marines castrated a Shetland pony thought to be loyal to the regime.

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If I die in the next 72 hours, I'm screwed. Bottom line, no exaggeration, no way around it. Until the DHL guy shows up on my doorstep with my crate from Angola, I am officially minus a living will. And I'm still pissed my old one died.

And to add itch to the burn, now I've got some "legal expert" on the phone telling me that a living will has nothing to do with shaving your last will and testament onto the back of an anteater and keeping the damned thing in your coat closet. I said okay, smart guy, then what do you say a living will is? He said my name, but I didn't understand anything he said after that.

So now I've got to be careful like a Quaker until Wednesday night: no juggling with knives, no base-jumping, freebasing, or bass guitar. No street luge. No homemade neon signs, no karate-boxing with kangaroos, and no pissing on bikers while they're sleeping.

I'm keeping myself locked in the bathroom until I hear that DHL knock on the front door. In case that sounds weird to you, don't get excited. I'm not stupid. I installed a listening tube and ran it through the attic into the bathroom. I could hear a mouse fart on my front doorstep. And I have.

In the mean time, I've started to do some long-term planning. I'm not entirely certain what the lifespan of an African anteater is supposed to be. This last one certainly didn't set the world on fire with his longevity. No Dick Clark of the anteater world, this one. So I've started to think I should find myself a living will candidate that lives longer than three months, so I don't have to go through this bullshit every time I forget to throw some steaks in the coat closet for a few weeks. Oh, and it should be some kind of animal that eats dog food, because those steaks stink up the hallway pretty awful. Fucking picky anteaters.

Some asshole Jehovah's Witness that I was talking to through the listening tube earlier today had the balls to ask me why I couldn't just do a regular will on paper, like a normal person. Shit, like this guy knows normal from a Martian dick-tickler. I explained, in my most patient and mannered tone, that he needed to pull his head out of his mother's ass. The dude still had questions, so I explained further the should-be-obvious point that in a house fire, your normal paper will isn't going to do a damned thing but fuel the fire, laughing a crackling little laugh in your face as all your hard work goes up in smoke. But a living will, well, pretty much every creature under God's green earth runs away from the kinds of four-alarm infernos we have regularly on my block. And afterward once you find the right anteater, the one that's wearing the neckerchief you put on it, bingo, you've got your living will back, you no-birthday-having gimp.

So, anybody out there know of anything that lives longer than anteaters? Tortoises, for sure, but you try shaving any amount of text into the back of one of those suckers and get back to me. It's got to be something with hair, and a reasonable amount of back space. I suppose a Sasquatch would do, since those babies have back like nobody's business, but you tell me where I find one of those at nine o'clock on a Sunday night and I'll christen you Captain Fuckin'-A Amazing.

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"God and I have an understanding. I don't argue He doesn't exist and he won't argue it about me."

You know how some people are really smart but they're no good at tests? I'm like that—no good at tests. I'm not good at remembering stuff or thinking of things real fast either, and I'm not really good at coming up with ideas of my own or knowing things that people just sort of know. But I'm really bad at tests.

Some people call it test anxiety, like where you get really worried about how you're going to do and forget all the stuff you know. But that's not it. I mean, if I knew the stuff and forgot it, that would be bad enough, but I have no clue what they're talking about. One teacher tried to tell me I was dyslexic, but I told him I don't really go to church at all. I can't believe God would be such a dick, if He exists, and take away all my knowledge of everything just to be spiteful. If that's the way he's going to be about it, I'm never going to church. Just to be spiteful.

I have gone to church before, technically. You always hear about how a church is supposed to be a place where anybody is welcome at any time of day or night, no restrictions, but they're just hypocrites. Next time you're driving home Sunday morning with a little whiskey still sloshing around in your gut drive up the steps and into their doors while the dude, the what you call him, is giving his big God speech. See if you'll be welcome then. I can tell you first hand you won't.

Every once in a while I feel bad about what I've done, or what I am, or the box of Cracker Jacks I got that didn't have no surprise in it, but it's not like I need someone to tell me it's God's plan or something dumb to make me feel better. It doesn't make any more sense to me that God thinks it's funny there's no prize in my snacks exactly when I'm in the mood for a lick-on tattoo.

Just for laughs I went to a church once and the church guy there told me they were full. It didn't sound full, that's what I told him. He said it wasn't full, but they were closed for the holidays, and he didn't want to hurt my feelings. Then he pushed me off the steps and ran back inside. I could hear him locking the doors and him and his friends were laughing. What do you call them? Monks?

I guess I could take better tests if I read books and such. I tried reading the Bible but all that "begat" stuff really pissed me off. They introduce like a hundred and something characters in the first few pages. I'm not much of a reader, but I can tell you that's the kind of bad writing that can keep your screenplay from being produced. I still read about five pages of it, two columns on each, and then nobody ever tested me on it. So you can see why I don't ever want to read a book again just because they say there's going to be a test on it. You never know, they're probably lying.

Nine out of ten times they aren't, yeah. Maybe even ninety-nine out of 100. But reading, you know… it's boring.

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