A LIKELY STORY: NUTPIALS MEAN NEW FOUR-LEGGED FAMILY MEMBER

My single friends tell me it's time to say goodbye to all the things in my life that I hold dear.

They say after I get married, in just 11 days, there will be no more Baywatch posters, after-work happy hours, nights out with the boys or decorating the apartment with strategically placed old socks and not-quite-empty beer bottles that are more sentimental in value than they are practical.

My more optimistic chums tell me not to think of it as a loss of freedom but the gaining of a dog. Which is OK. I like dogs. I like HER dog. What makes it bad, however, is that I know Lori loves Sophie more than she does me.

Don't scoff, I have proof: Lori never rubs my belly, picks off my fleas, buys me little sweaters or encourages me to "go potty" in the back yard.

It's the little things that tip me off.

Lori reads all kinds of "Doggy Parenting" books by people with way too much time on their hands. One of Dr. Wolfer's books recommends filling a bone with bottled cheese to make your dog behave better.

What ever happened to a rolled-up newspaper?

But I'm not (extremely) jealous and the dog thing is OK, really. If she can take on the responsibility of being the stepmother to a tenacious 4-year-old (Hi, Zachary), I can put up with her taking her pooch to doggy doctors, K-9 cuticle cutters, bow-wow barbers and puppy psychiatrists.

I mean, have you seen those dogs with long cuticles? How can their mommies take them out of the house? Lori would just die.

Maybe you do detect a bit of acerbic sarcasm. I guess it's hard not to find it a BIT annoying, her intense coddling of a creature who's favorite pastimes are sniffing behinds and barking uncontrollably at seemingly criminal tree trunks.

And Lori's awfully impressed with this dog that took six months to teach to sit; I don't understand it. Of course, maybe I'm being too harsh.

Let me say the dog has her talents. She's a natural at finding a cool place in front of a fan and she's an Olympic beggar so who am I to make fun?

You gotta have goals.

At least the rest of her family is relatively normal.

Except for her mother. She's as strange as the baby girl that she gave birth to 25 years ago. She calls herself the dog's grandmother and is saving a small fortune to ensure that Sophie is educated in only the best Ivy League obedience schools.

It gets worse. I believe I walked in on her discussing the upcoming election with the pooch last week.

I mean that's just silly. Sophie is no where NEAR 18 yet.

Her mother loves to get the dog involved in everything, too. She thought, when we were looking for a flower girl, that we could dress the dog up and let her do it.

"It'd be precious," she said.

"Someone, shoot me now," I said.

Then she suggested that we should take the dog with us on our honeymoon to Florida because "Sophie's never been out of the state."

There's nothing I'd like better than getting Sophie out of the state. Sophie would end up hitchhiking. This dog can't find her way out of a bathroom with the door open, but of course she'd find her way across seven states to make my life miserable.

Even Lori's dad, who I used to be able to count on as a brother in scorn, has crossed over to the Dog Side. He calls the mongrel his granddaughter, too, and if the rumors are correct has changed his will to bequeath his many millions to the dog.

Me? I'm getting a bone.

~Scott Moyers is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.