"Dog" License

On my way to work Friday morning, I stopped behind an SUV with a vanity license plate. The plate was the type proud pet owners might purchase: The slogan “Caring for Pets” sat in small letters at the bottom, accompanied by an illustration of a dog and cat posing with a red croquet ball on the left. Typically, the center is reserved for the name of the beloved pet, such as Fluffy or Mitzy or Eugene. For this license plate, however, the owner had chosen three letters that most people wouldn’t consider to be a name:

G I R

Only then did I see the two decals, one plastered onto the license plate itself, the other onto the bumper next to it. The first depicted their “dog” in a state of elation; the other showed the same little guy screaming. Upon seeing this, I spent the next ten minutes in my own state of elation, rattling off quotes to myself in the car. Rarely does something make my day before 8:30am even rolls around.

Now, I know some of you are probably confused, wondering how a dog could scream, or why such a thing would bring me such joy (or, for that matter, why I put the word “dog” in quotation marks up above), and that’s a horrendous shame. For instance, if I asked the floor to make me a sammich, or announced that I wanted a barrel of flies and two balls of glue to be my friends, you might have me fitted for a straightjacket.¹ But the explanation is really quite simple: GIR is not actually a dog. He is a robot from another planet that wears a costume to blend in here on Earth. And frankly, I’m disappointed that you didn’t know this already.

If you are indeed one of the poor confused saps I’m talking about, this next part is of the utmost importance: You must stop whatever you are doing this very moment — and yes, I mean stop reading this blog mid-sentence — and go watch the first few discs of Invader Zim, or else you will continue to live a sad, baseless existence and never find true enlightenme—why in the name of The Tallest are you still reading this? Didn’t I tell you to go watch the show? Go on! Go!

Now where was I? Oh yeah. I also want a chair made of a cheese, and a table made of cheese, and…


¹ Or, maybe you’ve already done that long ago. I probably shouldn’t assume.