As I cleaned up after lunch today Jon entertained Leta by throwing her up in the air and making rocketship sound effects with his mouth. She loves this, but she had just drunk an eight-ounce carton of chocolate milk. I know that my couch is less of a couch now and more of a giant down-filled square of velvet tissue the dog uses to cushion his anal glands, but if we’re going to sit in filth I’d like that filth to be streamlined. Who wants chocolate-flavored vomit in their anal glands?

I told Jon to tone it down because we had just eaten, and as he brought her giggling back to Earth he said, “Next time we’re not going to go so high because we just ate.”

“ATE?” She asked, making sure she heard him correctly.

“Yes, ate,” he said. “We just ate lunch.”

Unable to control the adrenaline he had shaken loose she jumped up and down on the couch and shouted, “ATE! NINE! TEN!”