Canned Dog!

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Imagine how awful a lot of knowledge is! I'm an old man on a fixed income so I know plenty and it scares the beejeebies out of me. Beejeebies are quantum units of vitality that geezers secrete in preparation for emergency enigma overloads. So when I go into our local supermarket and see a sign like the one above in the pet supply aisle, I have Norma take a photo of it while I run away and hide in the wine and beer aisles where there are other old men hiding and conserving their beejeebies.

"Canned Dog!" I announce, "They got canned dog on aisle 15."

"We know," says another geezer. "That's why we're all in the booze section. We gotta figure this out."

"My stunt double's down there now taking pictures."

"Post them!" Say the geezers, "World needs to know what's going on!"

"What IS going on?"

"Well, it's this hyper-driven, too-fast society. Folks aren't happy with fresh dogs that wander up to the house and ask to live there. They don't want to save untrained, unpedigreed, unprincipled pound dogs either. They want preprogrammed, prepackaged, pre-groomed, canned dogs right off the shelf. By the way, I believe that's your stunt double pushing her cart toward us now."

I ask Norma to show the photo on the little screen. Everybody gathers around it. Yep, it's canned dog all right. There's a general request for an enlarged image, a foreground detail.

"Oh my gosh!" Says one, "They didn't just freeze-dry, compact and package those poor creatures."

"No," says another. "They went and Samoyed 'em first!"

"Samoyed?"

"It's an infernal process that bleaches and fluffs a regular dog until it looks like a white teddy bear."

"How?"

"Samoying a dog involves changing their atomic structure to sustain a constant static charge that frizzes their fur and makes it repel all light wavelengths so they turn bright white!"

"They have to stay inside an ATOM SMASHER for days! Dog'll always feel awful and never reach its full potential after a thing like that."

Another geezer joins in: "Then getting granulated, canned and shelved before a new owner rehydrates...SAY, look at that price tag rail!"

"Goldang! 99 cents. Practically givin' 'em away! And you just add water, huh?"

There was a frenzied  sussurus of soft soles shuffling off toward aisle 15. Norma and I were suddenly alone.

"Cabernet with supper, you think? Lodi or Sonoma?"

"Both, that should replenish my beejeebies admirably!"