Shut up, Barky.

I have a neighbor who lives behind my house. I actually have quite a few of them. I've never actually taken the time to meet any of them. This has been the case because:
#1.) I'm kind of a jerk, and
#2.) I'm not home that much anyway. When I am home, I'm usually in some sort of vegetative state on my bed eating one of Little Cesaer's Hot 'n Ready $5 pizzas and watching a movie. That's what happens when you have two and a half jobs.

Speaking of being in a vegetative state, though, the time that I am not eating said pizza and/or watching a movie, I am asleep. Ah, yes... Sweet, sweet sleep. Most nights, I have ridiculous dreams. Last night's? Sure! I dreamt that Rachel Briggs and I were stock clerks at Kroger and discovered a windfall of baby diapers and ice cream bars that we were going to steal and sell on the black market. After our successful venture into the world of organized crime, we went out and sung Christmas carols. This sounds like it very well could be the sequel to Safe Men. How awesome would that be?! Very. Very awesome.

It's dreams like the aforementioned one that cause me to wake up singing aloud the words to "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!" which has now been in my head since I woke up some four hours ago. If you're doing the math and not paying attention to the stupidly inaccurate time stamp on this here blog, you may deduce that this puts me up somewhere in the range of five o'clock in the morning. It's not like I had anything to do that early this morning. I entertained the idea of going running that early but that was too early... plus this Inland Tropical Storm NeverSeemsToEnd rain we've been having has severely curtailed my athletic endeavors over the past week and a half. What in the world could have awoken me from my slumber?

A barking dog owned by the neighbor who lives behind me.

It's my job to overcome questions (it's not really, because I'm not a salesman) so I know what your first one is: "How did you hear the dog? Don't you sleep with your windows closed when there's 134% humidity?" Under normal circumstances, I would have socked you, dear question asker, in the teeth for asking such a dumb question. Of course I do. My finely honed ears pick up most everything. That and I have to sleep with my window open right now because our air conditioning system is fucked up at the moment. The good and bad of having inexpensive rent, I suppose.

So this dog continued to bark and I continued to lie there awake. The only thing that I could think of were ways to extract my revenge. Why? Because I'm a hell of a dude. None of my ideas seemed to be very good:

#1.) Dogfighting. This has been looked down upon in recent years. Plus, this is the dog that I would be using to fight. She's afraid of water. Seriously. Also, the Rados might get pissed at me.

#2.) Yelling out, in typical East Nashville fashion, "SHUT THAT DAMN DOG UP!"

#3.) Feeding the dog milk chocolate. That's a little too sadistic, even for me.

So, as I listened to Wonder the Never Ending Barking Dog, I came up with an idea that solves almost all my immediate problems: an ice cream truck route. It would give me another job, another source of income, free ice cream, and I'd get to annoy the hell out of my neighbor with "The Entertainer" at an insane volume and on permanent repeat. I've been fervently hunting on craigslist...

Also, I wouldn't be singing Christmas songs in September. It's a win-win for me. And if I could only find that real life windfall of diapers. I'm becoming more and more diabolical by the minute...

P.S. Additional points to whomever gets the sitcom referenced in the title of this blog. Maybe even some free ice cream, too. Maybe.