Weapons of Mass Distraction

I believe I'm starting to understand what life is all about. It's a series of distractions.

Your life, every second of it, is a long (hopefully) jumble of distractions to keep your attention off the result – death, decomposition, nonexistence.

God's real objective is two things – He gets off on creating things and destroying things. Life is just what happens in between His two favourite activities.

When God first created life, He realized, "Guess I better keep these creatures busy until I'm ready to stamp them out of existence." Thus He created distractions like Ebola, sex, t.v., Rob Ford. His weapons of mass distraction.

And then there's my weapon of mass distraction – peanut butter. (From God to peanut butter - that's reader's whiplash)

There really doesn't exist a more astounding substance.

Oh sure, there's some good competition. Silly putty. I remember longingly gazing at Farah Fawcett's smudged face as I lifted the impression from my sister's celeb mag, scurried to my bedroom and locked the door.

Dynamite is a boy's dream, especially when it was packaged in a child's favourite "toy" during the seventies – lady fingers. Tiny fire crackers you could fit in the smallest of spaces. As the inventor must have wondered, "Why is it so hard for kids to blow things up? Let me take care of that."

And blow things up I did. With my best friend I led the assault on my neighbour's rock garden, striking over 70% of the rare and beautiful flora with precision explosions. Were we the early inspiration for Al Qaeda and ISIS?

As I got a bit older, other substances become more important – spermicidal gels, alcohol. Currently my second favourite substance is the memory foam that makes up my mattress.

But alas, peanut butter still holds first place. It staves off hunger far more effectively than beer ever will.

(What does this have to do with Newman?)

Well, Newman adores peanut butter too. Far more than Poodletang. So much so that I use it as a weapon of distraction against him, without him even realizing it. What a dummy.

On days when Newman wakes up and stalks me until I throw a ball for him, as in every day since we've had him, I have to find ways to avoid him. Previously I would lock myself in the dryer and turn it on. Newman is afraid of the dryer.

(You need a new strategy, buddy)

Peanut butter is the new strategy.

I generously apply peanut butter to his little rubber bone toy. He goes ape shit over it! Spends a good part of the morning tonguing it to death.

The toy is so full of minuscule nooks and crannies I'm certain there is peanut butter from 9 months ago drying into something resembling concrete.

I still don't understand how Newman can down a litre of peanut butter and still bark coherently. When I eat peanut butter by itself, I might as well have inserted a no-pest fly strip in my mouth. Things get very sticky.

If I just finish a dollop of peanut butter and then the phone rings, I answer it sounding like I have a life-threatening cold and went overboard on the dextromethorphan. Sir, you need to go right to the hospital if someone cut your tongue out, exclaims the person on the other end. (That's sick)

To my rescue is jam, which serves as a kind of WD40 for my mouth.

Anyway, peanut butter keeps Newman distracted, which keeps me happy and looking for distractions myself. The internet now replaces my silly putty.