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The Baby

The Baby is also known as She Who Would Climb Over You While You Sleep. She is also She Who Would Pull Your Ears for No Reason Other Than the Pleasure of Pulling Your Ears, and She Who Randomly Flings Food from the Table. She Who Would Climb Over You While You Sleep is a name you use for her as you select a place to lie down. In reality, this name is no longer or shorter than any of the other names, since it is not made up of words but of your emotional response to sensory data. As you are looking for a place to lie down, you are sometimes thinking, Find a place where She Who Would Climb Over You While You Sleep will not climb over you or pull on your ears or otherwise stumble into you. The thinking of these thoughts and the feeling of the emotions associated with them are inseparable, and the name The Baby does not conflict with She Who Would Climb Over You While You Sleep. They are, in effect, the same name.

It should also be noted that there is no such place in the house where she will not climb over you or pull on your ears or otherwise bump into you and wake you up, but you look for it, you search for it, you long for it. Until she actually does climb over you or pull on your ears or otherwise bump into you. Then you are filled with joy at her presence and you lick her face. She has the most flavorful, ever-changing face of all your people. Sometimes salt (good). Sometimes apple (okay). Sometimes peas (yuck). Sometimes milk (yum).

It should also be noted that though The Baby belongs to you, she is not yours. Though she belongs to you, you are not confused. She is not a puppy.

He Who Rides His Bicycle in the Driveway

He also has many other names, such as He Who Puts You Outside When His Friends Visit, or He Who Puts You Inside When He and His Friends Play Outside or He Who Leaps from the Furniture. Most of the time, he pretends to ignore you. But you know better. He picked you from the box and held you first. His scent is imprinted on you, and above all, you will protect him from all harm. Your relationship with him is somewhere between brother and pack leader and father. Although he, too, belongs to you, and of all your people is most like you, he is not of you.

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Bookjacket

You Are a Dog

by Terry Bain

 

Buy online:
$10.73

Copyright © 2004
by Terry Bain
Published by
Harmony, a division of Random House, Inc