Confessions of a Movie Hound

By Lucy “in Disguise” Wells

I’m a dog, a Pembrook Welsh Corgi to be precise. The name is Lucy. Full given name: Lucy in Disguise. Don’t ask, because I can’t tell you. The man and woman who live in my house claim some story about how my coloring made it look like I was wearing glasses when they fetched me from the farm. They just think they’re clever if you ask me. What can you do? They’re mine, so I guess they’ve got that going for them.

They also have two pups of their own. The older one pretty much keeps to himself. Sometimes I just bug him so I can hear him whine out my name. That’s fun. What isn’t fun is the little one. I try to put him in his place by barking, growling and nipping at him. That usually produces crying and blows to my head. Don’t they understand that I am trying to give the boy valuable character lessons and survival instincts? Anyway, they call him Jude. British Invasion band obsession much, people?

I don’t have that problem that so many dogs have of thinking they are people. I know I’m better than those mules who fill my food and water bowls every day. As long as they continue to allow me to live in the lap of luxury while they run around cleaning up after their pups and me, they can believe they run this place for all I care. I’ll always be happy if I can just keep them getting their steam up by poking at them and shoving my toys into their laps whenever they think they’re doing something important.

Get this. They have this stuffed cat that they make hit me on the snout as if it is attacking me. They honestly believe I think it’s a real cat. But they’re cute, so I humor them.

The man concerns me though. He may be spending too much time enjoying himself and not catering to my needs. You see, he has this kind of light box on the wall of our basement. He got a bigger one after I allowed him to live with me last year. I think he spends far too much time watching it. Sometimes the woman joins him, and they stare at the light box on the wall for a couple of hours at a time, but the man spends much more time staring at it.

I’ve tried it a couple times, but I guess I don’t get it. It usually just puts me to sleep. Every once in a while another dog shows up in the light box and I have to run up to the wall and bark at the box until the other dog goes away. And those fools just sit there and watch while their lives are clearly in danger. Sometimes the light box will attack them in other ways, with loud noises and thunder and lightning; all the while those foolish people just sit there and watch.

Now, the man seems to have developed an addiction of some sort to the light box. Rarely an evening goes by when he is not sitting in front of it at some point. Sometimes he’ll sit watching the box for several hours, then pull out his little fold up light box and start tapping away at the insides of it with his finger tips. I think he is collecting his thoughts about the big light box when he does this. It seems strange to me that this practice would require a second smaller light box. I’m quite concerned. It’s as if he’s feeding his addiction with another addiction. I’ve seen other dogs addicted to their own poop try to supplement it with other dogs’ poop, sometimes even cat poop. It isn’t pretty.

Even more disturbing than when he uses his little light box to comment on the big light box is when he falls asleep on the couch watching the big light box. Doesn’t he realize one of those poop addict dogs could come rushing out of that light box at any moment? I’ve never seen him fall asleep in front of the little light box. I don’t think a dog could fit through that one anyway, but I suppose their poop could.

I try to protect him from himself. I’ll often curl myself into a ball at his feet, ready to spring like a steel trap at anything that threatens his life. Sure he thinks I’m lazy and take that time to snooze, but as a Corgi my ears are like finely tuned satellite dishes constantly searching the skies for enemy threats. When I’m at his feet, he may think I’m just enabling him to feed his disgusting addiction, but it is the duty of us superior beings to protect the lesser life forms of our world. I may not understand the primitive working of his mind or his sad addition to that light box, but that does not free me of the responsibility of caring for my environment. Plus, it takes two of them to remember to feed me every day.

One day I may need to initiate an intervention for this sad creature who is under my care. I dare not intervene too early however, since quitting any addiction cold turkey can often have devastating effects on everyone within the environment of the victim. I can only hope that one day this man—who occasionally fills my bowl with food and plays the cat attack game with me—will one day realize what danger his light box addiction is placing him in and take the hard path to recovery. Until then, I will be at his feet or in his lap, ready to fight off the forces of the box and all the poop addict dogs hiding within.