Undoubtedly Rhetorical

Are You As Happy As Your Dog?
by Alan Cohen

Alan Cohen asks, 'Are You As Happy As Your Dog?' Let's examine it. My dog is fed three times a day, sleeps whenever he feels like it, has the run of the house and is walked, driven and carried. My pampered pooch enjoys financial independence even though he hasn't worked a day in his life, pays no income tax, has no children with mohawks who stay out till 5 am, has never been embarrassed by having a credit card payment refused at the local supermarket and isn't nagged by either a boss, a spouse or self-doubt. My mollycoddled mutt has never felt the urge to throttle the neighbour when he tunes his drag racer on Sunday morning and has never had to endure the torture of listening to televangelists like Jesse 'Tombstone Teeth' Duplantis or multi-skilled motivational gurus in shiny suits. My rotten hound doesn't need dentures, hair implants, elasticised trousers, eye-watering prostate probes, porthole-thick reading glasses, vials of Viagra, piles of Prozac or barrels of Botox.

I didn't need to read more than the book's title to answer Cohen's question. In fact, I couldn't read more than the title. My malicious mongrel buried my glasses somewhere in the backyard.