Blog Has Moved

Because I have been pulled in to the MySpace community, I am moving my blog.

This blog will be updated rarely, if ever.

You can find my new blog at http://blog.myspace.com/runawaycorn

Thank you.

The Hidden Insecurities of He-Man

I’ve been watching a lot of the 1983 television series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe lately. Despite the sound writing, cool music, and graphic homoerotic overtones, I have a problem with the show.

The series is set on a faraway planet called Eternia. In nearly every episode, the evil Skelator and his minions plot to conquer the Castle Grayskull, because it contains “the secrets of the universe.” Skelator’s evil plots would succeed were it not for Prince Adam, who, the opening tells us: “holds aloft his magic sword, says the magic words and becomes He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe!”

He-Man is a separate being from Prince Adam, who takes possession of the young man whenever Eternia is threatened. Then He-Man’s personality recedes back to whence it came, be it the halls of Grayskull or Adam’s psyche. None of this really matters though. What you need to know is that without the emergency aid of He-Man, Eternia would fall to the forces of darkness.

As I said before, Skelator hatches a new scheme to defeat He-Man each episode, and falls just short. Of course, if he were any kind of mastermind, he wouldn’t use one evil scheme at a time. He’d find one super-weapon such as the Diamond Ray of Disappearance, hold off for a while, then combine its power with another magic tool, such as the Shape Shifting Staff. He-Man and the MOTU would be overwhelmed.

Even more disturbing, however, is that He-Man simply allows Skelator and his minions to escape back to their Snake Mountain fortress at the end of each episode. Then, apparently, the forces of good wait to be attacked again.

If any planet was in need of the Bush Doctrine, it’s Eternia. Imagine if He-Man, instead of waiting till the last minute to arrive stop the bad guys, were to launch a pre-emptive strike against Snake Mountain and catch Skelator off guard. If the good forces of Eternia had any sort of strength at all, they would have taken this action after Skelator’s first attack on the castle.

Therefore, I can only arrive at one conclusion: the forces of King Randor and the other “good guys” are inherently weaker than those of Skelator. Skelator has a robot army, super-powered acolytes (such as Beast Man, who controls all animals!), and is a master sorcerer. Yet, the king’s forces are aided by the magic of the Sorceress, whose powers weaken when she leaves Castle Grayskull. So there exists a sort of stalemate between these two great armies. The one person who can always strike this balance is He-Man, the “Most Powerful Man in the Universe.”

But I submit to you that He-Man’s worth extends no further than his raw strength. He is no grand strategist, only a gun to be fired at the enemy. When he fights, he leads no troops into combat: he just picks up the villains by their feet, swings them around, and throws them into a river. Or he punches a rock.

But still, he is capable of great feats, such as lifting a boulder to cap a volcano, or deflecting the magic bolts of Skelator with his enchanted sword. Then why does he not end the destructive conflict between the rival forces of Eternia?

Remember that when He-Man is not He-Man, he is Prince Adam, son of the king and heir to the throne. Adam, according to any episode of the show, is lazy, a poor warrior, and is always late for official functions. In the episode “Teela’s Quest” he even skirts guard training to go fishing. Yet, when he “holds aloft his magic sword” he becomes endowed with the “powers of Grayskull,” the entire might of the universe runs through his veins, and he is the hero of millions. And he has a great tan.

This train of thought can only arrive at one conclusion: Prince Adam is prolonging the conflict with Skelator to feed his own ego, thereby endangering trillions of lives all over the galaxy. Should he one day fail and Grayskull falls to Skelator, the madman will conquer us all.

I question the wisdom of the Sorceress, who claims that Adam is “destined” to become He-Man and save Eternia. I question the tactical sense of Duncan, the “Man-At-Arms” of the Eternian castle, for not urging Adam/He-Man to finish the fight. Most of all, I question myself, for having looked up to such a flawed man all through my childhood and adult life.

Slumber Party Massacre 2

Tonight I watched Slumber Party Massacre 2, a 1987 film starring a young Crystal Bernard (better known as Helen Chapel from the TV show "Wings").

First off, let me say that while I did not see the original Slumber party film, I followed this one with ease. The main character, Courtney (Bernard) is a minor character in the first film, but this is understood easily enough through flashbacks.

It should also be noted that the film series was successful to spin off a number of knocks offs, including (I'm not making this up) Lingerie Party Massacre, Bikini Party Massacre, and Alien Beach Party Massacre.

With those pleasantries aside, I'll tell you that I didn't like the film. Courtney and her friends are a hot teenage rock band that hopes to make it rich. They fool their parents into allowing them a weekend getaway to a condo, where they plan to practice their music, write songs, and, oh yeah, hook up with boys.

We do not see much of the aforementioned hooking up. Oh, there is a fun scene where they dance and splash champagne on each other amidst a shower of feathers, while the one actress without a titty clause in her contract (the one with the smallest breasts, I should note) dances topless. A couple of horny teenage boys (oxymoron) watching her from the window echoed my thoughts when they said, "I didn't know girls really did this stuff at slumber parties." He's right. Boys just play video games and fart.

And so the first night we hear sex through the walls of Courtney's bedroom, while she has extremely hilarious dream sequence fantasies about a topless football player.

Sounds normal, right? It is, except Courtney is having recurring visions from her previous Slumber Party experiences. A leather clad Andrew Dice Clay lookalike visits her and asks her to "go all the way" with him. When he finally appears, he chases them with an enormous badass guitar, tricked out with flames and a ginormous drill where the head stock should be. Therefore his victims get screwed, but not the "screwing" they intended. Get it, gang? Screw?

Anyways, so all of this is fun. Villain kills dumb teenagers, yay! Villain stops to do a few dance moves, quote a Fifties rock song, then screws another teenager, yay!

Except this wasn't just an ordinary horror movie. Remember that Courtney and her friends were in a rock band (actually a fairly good one), and that their boyfriends were coming to watch them perform. They can dress it up as a B horror flick all they want, but what this movie was really about was the role of women in asserting themselves in the rock and roll pantheon alongside rockabilly superstars like Elvis.

Because women were asserting their independance by being sexually aggressive, playing rock music, and manipulating phallic instruments (guitars, bass), they were penetrated by a leather-pants throwback from yesteryear. But not just penetrated: drilled, like a piece of machinery in a man's workshop.

Of course it comes down to Courtney, having to face this monster that's been living inside her head for so long (actually, I think he only haunted her this one weekend, but you get the idea). Does she turn his phallic instrument of doom against him? Use her own guitar to electrocute him? Hell, does she have a rock off and defeat him at his own game?

Nah. She sets him on fire and throws him off a building.

Then she wakes up next to the football player, and it was all a dream. And she kisses the football player, and yay happy ending, but then...the dream man turns into the nightmare guitar player, and she's suddenly in the very insane asylum her sister is confined to. Then we watch in horror as a regular-sized drill grinds into a small model that looks vaguely like her cell, in the worst special effect of an otherwise well-made movie.

The startling misogynist ending is surprising, given that the writer/director was a woman (Deborah Brock). She went on to direct 3 more B (no, b is too high. Let's say E-Movies) and, amazingly, co-produced the brilliant Buffalo '66.

So here's my message to Deborah Brock (the rest of you may scroll down: you had your chance to make a fun little slasher movie and give it real meaning. You could have furthered the cause of women's lib and inspired millions of young girls to be whatever they wanted, be it doctors, lawyers, or rock stars. And you threw it all away for a stupid twist ending the studio probably pressured you into accepting.

You're telling little girls everywhere that they might as well not run from the monsters--that they should "go all the way" with them or they'll be locked in a dark room with a big metal dick boring up through the floor for the rest of their lives. Shame on you.

As for the rest of you: you gotta see this fuckin' movie.

A Story I Wrote

This is a link to a story I wrote. I'm sort of proud of it, and would like to know what you think. I'd like to cut it down.

Click Here.

Restaraunt Quality Cat Food

So we fed the cat some of that high-falootin' cat food out of the can, and now refuses to eat anything else. He lets the dry cat food sit in his dish while he goes through withdrawls.

I thought about trying this cat food. It's gotta be more potent thatn heroin.

He does have a little burlap sack that says "catnip" on it. We though he'd go all crazy and shit when we gave it to him, but he just kind of sat there. He's like Garfield--his only drug is food.

Lord of the Flat Screens

I was at Wal-Mart when the doors opened on Black Friday. There were hundreds of people lined up outside, a full host of bargain hunters yearning to get their hands on a $100 20" flat screen TV.

I wasn't standing in line, I was only casing the situation out for my sister and sister-in-law. The shoppers were dressed for deer hunting, covered hear to toe in toasty carharts, carrying thermoses of coffee )though mine would've had whiskey.

They looked like American refugees straight out of War of the Worlds. That tired, soulless look in their eyes. Their faces numbed blue by the cold. They tempers were shortening. They had been waiting too long, and longed for the taste of battle.

The crowd wound tighter and tighter as it came closer to five. It was like the clock hands were pulling some sort of string tied to all their hearts and it was about to snap. When cars tried to poke through the lines, they people laughed at them. They pounded on the glass doors. Shouted at the clerks inside.

I ran back to the car and dove into the warmth, chattering, "This is a dark, wicked place. We must flee." My sisters gave me the look. The same look your mom gives you for playing "Lord of the Rings" in a K-Mart, when you're still in your mid-twenties. The "please don't talk like Aragorn all day look."

I paid them no mind.

When the doors opened, my sisters slammed into the crowd, blindly following the pack to whatever treat they smelled in the back of the store. I had to find a different road.

There was one way that would take me there quickly, a route wholly avoided on Black Friday: women's lingerie. This was a dark path that had frightened me since I was a small boy.

When I was still a tot, I was hiding from my family inside a round clothes rack. I waited for someone to yell at me, pay me some attention. When they didn't I poked my head out and found I was alone. I searched blindly for them. After a few wrong turns and I found myself surrounded by women's undergarments.

Vast towers of pink and lace and silk, closing me in, pulling every masculine breath from my tiny lungs. Thousand of pink terrors staring down at me, an army of brasierres sleeping and waiting to stike if I made the slightest sound. Those were--those were--boobies up there!

Vile!

Although my opinion of women's undergarments has changed significantly over the years, I still find the underwear aisle a little frightening. Still, I struck outward, like Frodo going through the mines of Moria. What foul, scantily clad orcs would meet me here, I didn't know. But I had a quest, and a prize to attain.

And there they were. Hundreds of televisions stacked taller then my head along the aisles leading to electronics. A Wal--Mart worker ran off to help someone and abandoned her cart.

In moments I spirited the television away and was first in the checkout line. In and out, just under five minutes. I should have won a prize.

New Jesus Calendar

I have this new calendar from the insurance agency, with Jesus on the front of it. He's holding a Shepard staff and he's standing next to, you guessed it, a bunch of sheep.

This sort of bothers me, because it's purely metaphorical. Jesus represents himself, the sheep represent us.

Jesus was never a Shepard. He was a carpenter. He probably got work from the Romans crafting the same crosses he was crucified on. That's what I'd like to see on the front of a calendar. A happy Jesus, content in his work, merrily nailed two large pieces of lumber together.

Letter to the Hospital

Administrator,

I’m very pleased to see that the hospital levy passed. I voted for it, and encouraged others to do so. I have faith that they will put these new funds to good use in service of the community. I also hope that, as part of the clinical campus they hope to build, they will consider building something we’ve never had, but also needed: an elephant clinic.

A proposed Adams County Elephant Clinic could care for area elephants in a variety of ways. For instance: thorns caught in paws, tusk replacement, and trunk physical therapy. The clinic could also care for mental ailments, as well. Mouse phobias, peanut addiction seminars, and the Dumbo Complex could all be treated.

I can hear the naysayers already: “But there are no elephants anywhere near Adams County.” To which I reply with two words: “Not yet.” We’ll never attract elephants and to this area unless we appeal to their needs. The sooner we build the Adams County Elephant Clinic, the sooner we can bring pacadern dollars into our community.

Sincerely,
Ryan Arey

I Shaved My Head the Winter My Dog Left

It's been sixteen days since my rooommate and best friend, Rambo, walked out on me. He didn't leave a note, just a visitor in my shoe.

Damned cocker spaniels. The old gypsy man at the pet shop warned me about them.

I miss him so much. Why couldn"t I be enough for him? What's wrong with me?

I hate my clothes. They have his fur all over them. My bottom drawer is full of doggy sweaters and tiny Halloween costumes.

I'm find more hairs in the sink everyday. Wrinkles. Gray eyes. I'm dead without Rambo. I can't stand to be old. I can't die.

I chaved my eyebrows on Christmas day. Then my head, then everything else. Now I'm clean, and he'll come back to me.

As I write this, I'm waiting in the doorway, clothed only in skin, watching the snowy hills. Waiting for a choclate-colored speck to come frolicing toward me on the horizon.

Ain't Nothing But a Ghost Full'a Mistakes

Nothing Good will ever come out of this, and that is Truth.

Something I heard in a Restaraunt

"You don't take checks!? What the hell is this, a cock fight?"

Dirty Hand

Some guys, when they're in love, they know it. They know it hard enough to get their chick's name tattooed on their flesh. Then you'll always have a record of good old Diane.

I have never loved a woman like that. Nothing ever felt that permanent. I once leta girl write her name on my hand, in junior high. She was okay. I didn't feel like my hand was a sign of love. My hand was dirty.

I didn't want to rub spit on it in front of her, but as soon as I got home, I scrubbed like Lady Macbeth.

Dusties

There were two kids named Dusty in Ms. Wallace's class. To avoid confusion, they called them "Cool Dusty" and "Stupid Dusty."

We're concerned with Stupid Dusty for now.

Stupid Dusty took his geography test into the intervention classroom for remedial students. The test had several countries labeled with numbers instead of names. It was the job of the students to label the countries.

The remedial teacher made the choice multiple choice. Every number had two choices: the actual name of the country, and "China." For instance, Stupid Dusty would see a picture of France, and woudl label it either "France" or "China." Out of 32 questions, he answered "China" on 31 of them. The correct answer for number 32 was actually "China," but he left it blank.

Given the information, do you think Stupid Dusty was so stupid after all?

First Three Paragraphs of My Second Novel

Pete Miller was dying, and it was wonderful. He’d heard that dying was an awful thing. Maybe it would have been a dreadful thing: if he had to stay in this hospital bed, listening to that machine chime away his existence one beep at a time. Instead, he found, dying was much more like dreaming. Beep. One moment he was passing sewing pins into his lungs, the next he was running across a field, wind burning back his hair. He was a fast runner. Beep. The stalks of wheat tickled his thighs. They’d itch later, but not now. Many things would happen later. He’d hurt later. He’d be old later. He’d die later.

Now he was a boy, running with rock and roll in his bones.

Beep.

Lawbreaker

I got a speeding ticket the other day. When I tell people that, they react with sympathy, like I got a bitter deal. I was relieved. It could have been a lot worse.

When you've got a doped up black market rotweiller in the trunk and the cops don't search you, no ticket is too large.

Also, the back seat of a cop car is surprisingly nice. Cushioned leather seats, like a Lincoln town car. There wasn't much leg room, though. I asked the deputy if he could scoot up a tad. He didn't.

Like I said, the ticket could have been a lot higher.

New Friends!

I am a lucky man, because I've made new blog friends this week. This blog is different, I know. I don't write about myself, I don't encourage friends to visit it, and as a consequence I don't have many posts.

But now my new friends in female fitness and penis enlargement have visitied me repeatedly, and now I know that there is someone out there who cares about me. Finally, I can take the gun out of my mouth and celebrate life among friends.

Enemies of the State

Driving on a four lane highway today, and there's a state parked in the U-Turn spot that only THEY are allowed to use. Traffic is thick, and it slows when it approaches the patrol, then speeds up when we drive past him. The patrol car was encouraging gridlock and had no chance of catching a speeder in his ridiculous net.

Yet he was out there because they have a certain quota of tickets to meet, because they don't receive adequate funding from the state. Is any one else terrified that law enforcement can have a quota? Salesman have a quota, factory workers have a quota, police officers catch criminals.

What if they applied the quota system to crimes other than speeding? What if, every day, a cop had to catch a minimum number of rapes and burglars and wife hitting bastards? Well, that's impossible, so they'd have to invent the crimes and frame people.

Speeding tickets, on the other hand, do not require framing. Everyone speeds. Everyone. The speed limit is a law that, in theory, reduces our energy consumption nd makes the highways safer. Instead it breeds more distrust of law enforcement (at least among whites) than any other law.

In our eyes, state patrolmen aren't regular guys doing jobs; they're a breed of mutant assholes that complicate our days and levy unfair fines on us. When every citizen is a criminal watching over their shoulder, you live under tyranny.

Freedom Stick Part 2

The weeks continued on under the rule of the Freedom Stick. The days were quiet, punctuated by an occasional cracking we never lifted our necks up to see.

In those weeks, we learned what good behavior was. We raised our hands. We stood in straight lines. We straightened up our posture, and our lower case dees.

And we learned.

We studied, we found brains we never knew we had. In a few weeks of intense concentration and focus, we shot through the year's intended lessons and began reading Wittgenstein, Kikkegard, and performing Chekhov plays.

We shed our names once we entered the classroom, and were known only by our seat numbers. I was 15. But by god, there was order. The weaker kids like me were no longer picked on. We were safe.

Finally one boy, Number 04, came to class with a cold, because he played Ivanhoe in the play and didn't want to miss rehearsal. He sniffled a little too loudly, and Mr. Grater was up from his desk like a disturbed lion, his vile plank in hand.

"Number 04. Do you want the Freedom Stick?"

"No sir," mumbled 04, through his wheezing.

"I said CEASE that wheezing!" the Freedom Stick came down on 04 and he wailed. The wail gave him another swat and prompted more wheezing. "The beatings will continue until morale improves" bellowed the teacher.

I had to look. I saw Mr. Grater standing over a trembling 04, his hand white and red from beatings and clutching the edge of his desk. It was too much.

"Mr Grater?" I asked.

"Yes 14?"

"When you named the Freedom Stick, you said it gave us the freedom to be free from the cruelty of our neighbors. Or, if you rather, from ourselves."

"There is no questioning the Freedom Stick, 04."

"Yes sir, I know. But you have educated me past the point of simple blind obedience. Please hear my questions out so I can better understand your wisdom."

"Go on."

"So through the Stick we obtain freedom from one another, but not what John Locke would have described as personal freedoms, the freedom of the self."

"You also do not have the freedom to yell fire in a crowded classroom."

"Certainly, yes. But don't you see? The freedom to learn and be good but do nothing else is no freedom at all. 'Freedom Stick' is nothing but an Orwellian word to make we animals embrace the cage that shackles us. You pluck the feathers from our skin until we are grateful for the warmth coming from your hand--" I spoke quickly now, because Grater was descending upon me, "--Just as 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' was a misnomer that actually gave the Iraqis only the freedom to have the direction of their state altered by a greater super power who AAAGGH!!!!"
Just then, white hot lightning shot through my fingers and up my spine. I tasted copper in my mouth.

Another bolt of pain struck, but I did not cry out this time. My white and bleeding knuckles clutched the desk, taking swat after swat. With each swing I felt as though he had mountains of muscles in reserve that he had never used before, and endless stream of agony.

But I did not scream for mercy.

I looked up and saw my classmates watching us. They would not hold their heads down. Then:

The drop of a pencil, followed by another. Suddenly a great rain of simultaneous pencils falling, like a wood and graphite shower. The beating stopped. Grater knew what he was up against.

The Synchronized Pencil Drop. Then began the humming. First from one student, then another and another, until there was no way of knowing exactly where the humming was coming from. They beat in rhythm with one another, like a tiny rainshower of revolution.

"Do you hear that Grater?" I asked. "Do you hear the people singing the song of angry men? It is the music of a people who will NOT be slaves again!"

Then he was struck on the face with a gooey white mass of paper that oozed down his forehead. More spitball salvos came until at last he was ducking and running toward the door.

We let out three huzzahs. We knew that we were doomed, and that soon the principal would come into the room and put down our revolution. But for the time being, we drank from our tiny milk cartons as free men.

Freedom Stick

Second grade. Our teacher, Mrs. McBee had a baby over Christmas, so had a new teacher, Mr. Grater. Mrs. McBee (or as she sometimes allowed us to call her, "Carmen") was very pretty and she brought candy to class every Friday.

On his first day, Mr. Grater sat at his desk while we filed into our seats. He was a large man, with a long black beard. I don't mean a happy, dwarf beard, but a gnarly, scraggled beard that covered three-quarters of his face. His cold black eyes were the only part of him that moved, darting back and forth from the foilage of his facial hair.

After the morning announcements were done, he stood along with us for the pledge. The class was so stunned by his size, we couldn't concentrate on the flag while we gave our allegiance to it. We could only stare at his 6 foot eight frame, his great gut, and arms like steel girders. His legs were lanky, though, like two frail slilts holding up a stone temple.

We were reduced to recting the pledge in halfhearted mumbles, rendered speechless by the sight of this man who would hold dominion over us for the next six months.

At the end of the thing he walked the aisles, taking attendace. His voice sounded like gravel kicking up under a truck on a back road, harsh and gurgled. When the bok of our names was put away, with our mouths trembling under this man's harsh gaze, he produced a thin wooden board. So thin, it was almost floppy. Written on it were the words "Freedom Stick."

"Children," he began, using the only name he ever calle dus, "This is our freedom stick. We are all happy the freedom stick is here, because it means we are all free. Free to study in peace and quiet. Free to learn about the great, wide world outside these doors. Free to always feel safe from other classmates' teasing and ridicule."

What was said next, I cannot remember. I heard the softest of whispers behind me, and in a flash Grater was on top of me. I heard the Freedom Stick crack past my ear like a bullet, then the air was filled with Derrick Cobb's screams. I turned and saw him clutching a warped hand, and that horrible sound still fills my ears. The sound of flimsy pine whacking against human flesh and bone, the swift, violent pounding of terrible, tiny thundercracks.

"No talking," Grater said in a low voice. "Now go see the nurse."

to be continued....

My Last Couple Dogs

A number of months ago I was cruising in a jeep with a couple of friends, when my sister rang on the cell phone. "Bub, you have to go down to the car wash. There's a puppy lost down there whimpering it's little head off."

I hung up and spoke flatly to the driver. "Turn around, Britni. We have a rescue to mount." With that we one-eightied to the other end of town. Sure enough, there it was. An adorable spotted brown puppy, wailing, walking in and out of traffic, stopping cars and causing bedlam with its adorable innocence.

Like anyone else in this town, the pup felt awkward about accepting help. I nudged toward him, he nudged back. We finally cornered him behind the warm rusted ice machine and scooped him into the jeep.

He (it appeared to have a penis) was a pleasant passnger, and had finalyl stopped whining. The next few hours were spent showing the dog off and trying to solve its many mysteries. Everyone made their seperate observations about the pup. he was clearly a house dog, because he was so heavy. His claws weren't trimmed, but they weren't filed down, eaither, indicating it had lived on a carpeted surface. We all agreed it was a mixed breed, with it's mishmash of color, tails and ears.

By far, the dog's most endearign feautre were it's eyes: one blue, one brown. Like David Bowie. Because of this, and the animal's girth, we called it Major Tong.

We took digital photos of the Major and made posters. I even wrote a cute little poem:

Found
At the Car Wash end of town.
Adorable dog, one eye blue
The other, Brown
If you want this adorable slice of heaven
Call 587-1397

I even walked into the police station to file a report. It was my first time in a police station where I wasn't paying a fine or picking up a family member.

No one would keep the major for the night, so it was left on my shoulders. I had the number of a relative who was supposed to find lost animals homes. She would call me back tomorrow. Apparently, her husband was getting tired of his home being used for a kennel, so this lead might not work out.

Major Tong wasn't housebroken, so we went through quite a few rolls of paper towels while he got used to my place. We had another dog staying with us months earlier, a little terrier named Ruby. Ruby was originally my sister's worry, and when she wanted rid of the dog mom took her, in hoped of breeding the full-blooded bitch for a cash crop of puppies. We never hit Ruby, especially near her ovaries. Never let her near the microwave, either. We put more care into that dog's reproductive system than we did into our own home.

Sadly, mom just wasn't good at tolerating dogs, and my sister found her a good home. I always insisted to my nieces and nephews that Ruby was a lifelike robot that I built. They were young enough to half-believe me. "Is she really?"

"Yes."

Pause. "Really?"

"Yes."

"Then why does she poop?"

"I made her to act like a real dog, stupid."

But presently, Major Tong was a nice enough houseguest. He whimpered a little, but calmed down after I kicked him a little. Just kidding.

Turns out the relative could take the dog, and I drove him out to her house. She had a large dog pen, where a collie and a cocker spaniel had comfortable living quarters.

Sally (my aunt) was able to identify the dog immediately. "She's a husky/lab mix," I was told.

"Wait...she?"

"Yeah, it's a girl."

Turns out that not only did Major Tong have nipples, but the thing I had mistaken for a penis was actually a rudimentary vagina. I am quite proud of my ignorance of a dog's genitals.

Epilogue

Major Tong found a good home, and Ruby's new owners were astonished one day when they gave her a bath and she short-circuited. Afterwards, all she could do was chase her tail, which suited her just fine.