I’ve now just about reached that delightful stage in life where you’re no longer exposed to the horrors of other people’s children. This is because my friends’ offspring are mostly either safely away at university or virtually invisible in some far-off room staring at a screen, appearing only briefly to grunt some cursory greeting as they collect their food or drink before retiring once more to their virtual teenworld.
But just when I thought it was safe to go back into the water, I’ve discovered that it isn’t, actually, because my friends have started to replace their vanishing children with something much, much worse: their stupid bloody annoying dogs.
Like children, dogs are the litmus test for all your friends’ worst weaknesses. You think your friends are normal and sensible, with the same values as you — which is why they’re your friends. But when you see them with their children or their dogs, it cruelly, in some cases almost fatally, exposes the irredeemably vast gulf that exists between their way of doing things and yours.
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