Of Pork and Princesses

It's coollld today. Brrr! Yuck. This is nothing, though. There's an Alberta Clipper coming this week. Double yuck.

It was freezing at work this morning. Friday was, of course, hot. Consequently, somebody turned off the heat and then left for the weekend without remembering to turn it back on. My boss said he didn't do it -- but he had one of those little guilty grins on his face when he said it.

He sometimes will scribble down on a scrap of paper salient points he wants to make in a letter he wants me to write. I had one of those this morning. He wanted me to write adverse counsel in a divorce case (who always rides our butts over tardiness) about some documents we requested quite some time ago but have never received. I had no problem with that, but he also wanted me to say, "Don't blame your tardiness on age. I've known you for over 30 years and you've always been an SOB." I told him I wasn't sending that, whereupon he laughed and said he just wanted to see if I was paying attention. Yeah, right. He'd have loved to have sent it.

A Vermont couple sued over the shooting death of one of their beloved dogs, shot by a farmer with a BB gun. The farmer was charged with and convicted of animal cruelty. The couple later sued, and they prevailed insofar as damages for "property loss." They subsequently filed a civil suit for emotional distress, but a judge ruled that there is no provision in Vermont law that would allow them to recover damages for the loss of the dog's companionship or for emotional distress.

The couple plans to appeal to the state Supreme Court, and I hope they win. Companion animals are part of the family, and their loss is devastating, especially when it happens violently and for no reason.

"What we're trying to do is expand the law to recognize that the companionship between a dog and its owner is such that the owner is entitled to compensation" when that relationship is destroyed, said an attorney hired to help with the appeal.

In other animal news, actor George Clooney's pet pot-bellied pig died Friday at the age of 20+ years. Presumably, he died of old age. One can surmise that this was one pig who lived like a prince. R.I.P., Max.

When Roxan wrote up the list of Words Gone Wild she'd found and I added in my finds, I immediately saw the nebulous concepto for a short Twisted Linguistics story.

The words:

concepotualy
gusy
whone
princesds
I call back latter
big cliper ship
Ok, got tired of ussing that pic of my with the loti
feret in the cage
my favorie book
familure
some idot in a caprice
fliped
inpoud and, eclosed
sudenmly
vacume of
supsed
It is like he has took
monotary
publically

The story:

One afternoon, a bunch of princesds decided to gusy themselves up and go for a ride. One of their number didn't go because she couldn't be reached. She was out sailing on her big cliper ship, but she said, "I call back latter." She never did, and some of the princesds whone, but they went on without her.

There was a lot of princesd talk in the car -- about familure, about one's feret in the cage that had no monotary value but she supsed she liked it anyway. One talked about her favorie book, because she didn't like to do that publically. Another one bemoaned the loss of her favorite photographer. "Ok," she said, "I got tired of ussing that pic of my with the loti but all his other work was good."

Moving on down the road, some idot in a Caprice sudenmly fliped them off for no reason and yelled some mean words at them. Quite rightly, they took great offense to such a lowlife, untoward action. Concepotualy, they simply couldn't understand it. But these girls didn't live in a vacume of naïveté and they knew just what to do.

"It is like he has took leave of his senses," one of the girls declared.

"Taken," another of the girls corrected her grammatically challenged sister princess.

"What?!"

"He has taken leave of his senses," grammar girl explained.

"Oh, took you," sister girl chided with a gusy grin. "Whatever. You get my drift. But that's okay. We're going to clip the lout's wings."

They called the police on their princesd cell phone and whone so convincingly about the lowlife's bad driving and threatening behavior that it was guaranteed that the Caprice would be inpoud. They said they supsed he was drinking, too, which ensured that the bad driver would wind up eclosed in a jail cell overnight. The world is full of stupid, hateful, piggish people but princesds know how to handle them.