It seems there was a rather interesting section where certain animals sequestered in the city government's critter-housing center were interviewed about their feelings concerning the facility's badly needed expansion and upgrade. The furry faunas' answers were clever and made excellent points, but a few of you felt that my dog Howard should have been included in the questioning. Especially in light of his adolescent arrest history and that he had gnawed a lot of those nasty old holes in the kennel walls. Well, give it a rest. Let penitent dogs lie why don't cha? Besides, by now, most of you are aware that Howard no longer gives interviews since his humiliating appearance on the Alaska Magazine PBS television series where his juvenile delinquent doggy antics were exposed to a national audience by the Homer Animal Shelter. How would you like it if someone documented your entire nefarious bookings file that exceeded the size of an unabridged set of world encyclopedias and then featured it on a TV program? Naturally, the mutt was miffed and mortified. Although, he seems to be a little less embarrassed now because, according to the latest newspaper police reports, there's a small mob of human vandals around town who are trying to rival his past performances of overall mindless malfeasance by giving new meaning to the term of "abject idiocy." It's a dubious goal considering the fact that the miscreants are competing with an animal that has an IQ score one point north of his food bowl and three points shy of his chew stick, but they're trying. Also, may I suggest that some of you need to start actually drinking your morning coffee rather than snorting the grounds direct from the grinder? Or, at least stay away from the keyboard until you see normal colors again. Now, where was I? Oh yeah

A couple days ago, Wild Willie showed up unannounced at the cabin looking for some free advice on how to keep his truck bed more securely fastened to the frame of his ancient rig, Death Wish II. He was finally convinced that his bungee cord tie downs weren't going to cut it after his seventh equipment violation and a regrettable incident where the thing fell off in a buddy's yard while the guy's pet Schnauzer was attempting to relieve itself on the wreck's left rear tire. Fortunately, the cur lived. Unfortunately, it's now six times wider than it is tall and somewhat unstable during moderate wind conditions.

Just after W.W. arrived, it started to rain so heavily that the compact snow on the driveway suddenly turned into something akin to a lightly oiled ice rink and he had to crawl from the vehicle to our front door. I knew immediately that we were facing an emergency situation. Willie was going to have to spend the night! There was no way he was going to make it back up the hill because his tires were so bald that they lost traction on bare pavement if the humidity reached 50 percent. Besides, it was getting dark and the only light he's ever had on that beater was an engine fire.

Surprisingly, things went quite well. Willie bunked with Howard in the basement and neither managed to incapacitate the other with their 8.0 Richter Scale snoring. Jane and I finally managed to get some rest after I nailed the bed to the floor to keep it from vibrating out of the loft and we covered our heads with heavy-duty sleeping bags.

It continued to rain all night so the next morning our hill resembled a Teflon covered cookie sheet with an attitude. Being the masculine hero that I am, I decided to make a test run with our Explorer before Jane had to leave for work. As I girded my loins for a battle with the elements, Wild Willie stuck his mug out of the dog cave and asked if I needed any company. I should have said no. About three quarters of the way up, the car started sliding sideways and neither four-wheel drive nor studs seemed to help. I kept cool and had just started to get things back under control when W.W. bailed out screaming something like "Look out for the @%&*ing ditch, man! We're all going to die!"

I managed to stop, Willie didn't. He hit the glazed road and the last thing I saw was his butt spinning out of control down toward the bluffs with words flying out his mouth that scorched the bark on nearby alders. He didn't show back up for three hours and has yet to speak to me.

When I finally got back to the house, I informed Jane, "Well, sweetheart, you're lucky I checked things out first. You would have never made it up." She just gave me a puzzled look and quietly murmured. "I've never had any problems before. Of course, when it's like this, I put on the chains you bought a couple of years ago."

Man, I hope she keeps that memory lapse quiet. Senior moments like that shouldn't be shared outside the family.

When he's not trying out for the job of Zamboni driver for the new Homer Ice Rink, Nick Varney can be reached at wufferdawg@hotmail.com.