Meaningless Distractions: The iPod, Cell Phone, and Skate Board

So there I am, as humans are wont to say. On campus, with a lovely grass sward to roll on and sniff before going off with Boss to our four o'clock in WPH 201, which we get in the Spring Semester. And what do I see? Everywhere I go, co-eds with cell phones, co-eds with Uggs, co-eds glassy-eyed over some iPod stuck in the ear, co-eds with luggage carriers. Hey, the males! Skate boards! Skateboards are moving and noisy, and I am wired to react to anything that looks as though it might want to move away from the herd. Jeez! All I do is try to nudge them back.

What gets me, frosts me, as it were. They have all these--these accouterments. Can't humans get by without accouterments?

What accouterments they need is a dog, not an iPod.

You think I hyperbolize? A full forty percent of them, male and female alike, when they notice me, call out to me, trying to lure me over. For what? For a pat, a scritch of my ears. They say the newer, enlightened hospitals have come to their senses, allow dogs in for a visit to their people. Why not more dogs on campus? I'll bet grade-point averages would shoot through the roof.

But no, there always seem to be No Dog rules, No Dogs in restaurants, No Dogs in movie theaters (although I do recall once being taken to a drive-in movie, which at first I thought was just a long, long traffic signal. Anyway, what dog would actually want to go to a movie?

Dogs have noses; they don't need accouterments.

Humans have accouterments; they need dogs.