Entertainment

A screenwriter comes home to a burned down house. His sobbing and slightly-singed wife is standing outside. "What happened, honey?" the man asks.

"Oh, John, it was terrible," she weeps. "I was cooking, the phone rang. It was your agent. Because I was on the phone, I didn't notice the stove had caught on fire. It went up in seconds. Everything is gone. I nearly didn't make it out of the house. Poor Fluffy is gone..."

"Wait! Back up a minute," the man says. "My agent called?"

Co-workers sympathized as my mother complained that her back was really sore from moving furniture.

"Why don't you wait till your husband gets home?" someone asked.

"I could," my mother told the group," but the couch is easier to move if he's not on it."

For all their lives, my three sons have been told they have to do their chores around the house.

"I am NOT the maid" is a phrase they've heard many times.

When my oldest went off to college, he called me after one week at school. Among the first words he heard at college, he reported, were those of the dormitory maid, announcing to a student who had not picked up after himself in the men's lavatory,

"I am NOT your mother!"

Things dogs should try to remember:

• The garbage collector is NOT stealing our stuff even though I haven't got a chance to rip the bag to shreds to see what was in it.
• I do not need to suddenly stand straight up when I'm lying under the coffee table.
• I will not roll my toys behind the fridge.
• I must shake the rainwater out of my fur BEFORE entering the house.
• I will not eat the cats' food, before or after they eat it.
• I will stop trying to find the few remaining pieces of clean carpet in the house when I am about to throw up or have an accident.
• I will not throw up in the car.
• I will not roll on dead seagulls, fish, crabs, etc.
• I will not chew my human's toothbrush and not tell them.
• I will not chew crayons or pens, especially not the red ones, or my people will think I am haemorrhaging.
• I will not take whatever I please and hide it under the bed so my people can have a scavenger hunt looking for it.
• When in the car, I will not insist on having the window rolled down when it's raining outside.
• The sofa is not a face towel. Neither are Mom and Dad's laps.
• My head does not belong in the refrigerator.
• I will not bite the officer's hand when he reaches in for Mom's driver's license and car registration.
• I will not stand around Mom when she is cooking or when she is carrying her coffee, so she won't trip over me.
• I will not beg for food at the supper table, and especially not eat someone's food if they leave it for just a moment.
• I will not tear up the patio furniture, or put holes in the screen so I may jump in and lounge, just because I don't want to stay outside for more than 2 minutes.
• I will not chase the cat, and knock over breakable things in the process.
• We do not have a doorbell. I will not bark each time I hear one on TV.