Life is Full of Compromise

Yesterday Newman and I followed our regular schedule of going to play on the driveway at 9:30 a.m.

Why 9:30? Why not earlier? Thank you for asking. I can keep writing.

Well, it usually takes me an hour to rise from my self-induced coma others call sleep. It's a very herky-jerky process, fits and starts, maybe a bit like Bruce Banner transforming into the Hulk, minus the anger and lousy complexion. Okay, a bit of anger, but only when I'm approached. Also, I can't afford to ruin a good pair of jeans every time I wake up.

Then I combine industrial strength coffee with a kind of self-help internal dialogue that I use to motivate me to stay awake and have some kind of desire to face the day. "I'm not a child anymore" repeated about 100 times is part of the process. If I were free from societal pressure, I would prefer napping about half an hour after I wake up from a night's sleep.

It's very hard to overestimate the role coffee plays in my composition as a human being. Does the TTC need a downtown relief line? Do we need a national housing strategy for whores? Do I need therapy for my Cenosillicaphobia? Yes, I need coffee.

So, I'm finally awake and I go to the door with Newman to get to the driveway. The micro-second I open the door, Newman tears across the earth trying to catch a squirrel. He fails – he always does – but he did set a world record for the 10 metre squirrel dash.

He reminded me of the Olympic champion Bruce Jenner. An apt comparison because Newman's balls have been removed as well.

It also helped me realize what a huge compromise Newman makes everyday. Because when I started throwing the tennis ball for him, he really didn't chase with the same alacrity and lilt.

Newman really wants to be chasing live animals, not sports balls.

All of us, really, want to be chasing live animals, not sports balls. That's a metaphor. Unless you actually do chase and kill animals. Or sports balls.

But we continue to chase sports balls. It's all compromise.

Boy, I've faced a ton of compromise in my life. One of the biggest was when I lost my virginity. What a compromise that was…partly for me as well.

That's one of the problems with compromise. It's uneven. Some people compromise far more than others. My wife, for example. She had to climb down a very tall ladder to get to me. I was the guy holding the ladder. It's not that I don't want to be great. I just have a fear of heights.

Scientists say that evolution is a big series of compromises. Really? I think it's a mistake to personify evolution, as if it's some kind of conscious thing that makes choices.

This feeds the whack job creationists, and we want to try and starve these people of any possible reason to completely and utterly reject things like reason, evidence and precedent.

Can you believe they think the universe is 6,000 years old? How do they explain Hugh Hefner? What about your average Starbucks latte? Takes forever to wait for one of those.

Evolution, the spontaneous change of living things, just happens. I know this because the lemon I accidentally left in my washroom for 6 months turned into a fuzzy blue tennis ball. Long story.

You. Yes, you! Are compromising right now. Clearly you've read all your cookbooks, user manuals and ingredient lists, because you're reading this now.

Fetch the ball.