I Have One Big Dog and One Small Dog

The verdict is in and the rumors are true: I have two dogs, one big and one small. Hogzilla (big) is a Great American Fiendish Longhound. Peaky Blinders (small) is a Miniature Long-Haired Pomster/Choo Choo mix.

When confronted with any two things, the human brain attempts to compare them. I do not claim to know why the brain does what it does. I am more of an ass man. Here is a handy guide you can use to tell the difference between my big dog Hogzilla and my small dog Peaky Blinders.

Hogzilla is, and I can’t stress this enough, big. His bark sounds like a human man screaming the word “HARF” in baritone. Once a burglar climbed into my house and tried to burgle my treasure and, with a single harf, Hogzilla stripped the man of his clothes, then his skin, then his muscles, reducing the once powerful burglar into a harmless skeleton. Then, with another mighty harf, the bones of the burglar’s skeleton rattled and rearranged to form a tiny bone prison cell around the burglar’s skull. It was actually pretty cool. Also, and I have no idea how he does this, but right before Hogzilla barks his body wrinkles and it makes the sound of a shotgun cocking.

Peaky, on the other hand, makes nary a peep. This is because, again, he is very small. His barks are often mistook for a faucet leaking in the house across the street. Once he got trapped inside one of my nostrils while I was asleep (probably during one of my snores) and I did not hear his yelps even though he was literally inches from my ear drums. I only realized he was in there after he wriggled up my nose and walked passed the backsides of my eyeballs and I saw his silhouette projected onto my wall.

Speaking of food (I am talking about food in the private conversation I am having while typing this), Hogzilla and Peaky Blinders have vastly different eating habits. Before you ask, the answer is yes: I did buy them a big bowl and a small bowl, respectively. The problem is that they got confused (they are dogs, not bowl scientists) and mixed their bowls up. So Hogzilla eats from Peaky’s bowl, which is about the size of two thimbles. I need to refill it four hundred times per meal. Hogzilla can unhinge his jaw to eat things much larger than himself, which is something I thought that only snakes could do. But what are dogs if not snakes that can love you back?

Peaky eats from Hogzilla’s giant bowl, which is tricky because I need to somehow affix his single piece of kibble to the lip of the bowl with dog-safe paste so he can reach it. If Peaky misses the kibble and falls into the bowl then I have to call, like, ten of my buddies to come help me fish him out and, when we finally retrieve him, he looks like he has seen ghosts or something. Not fun. Once he fell into the bowl and somehow ended up crawling out of my shower drain, which is also something I thought only snakes could do.

︎︎︎Me (middle), Peaky, and Hogzilla circa 2018-ish

Sometimes on rainy days Peaky, Hogzilla and I will play a game called “Twister Town” where Hogzilla will walk in tight circles around Peaky and I, creating a small tornado that scoops us off the ground. Then Peaky will stand on my back and pretend he is flying on a magic carpet and I will sing the song from Aladdin but instead of “I will show the world” I sing “I will show you a squirrel.” It’s just for goofs and nothing serious, just goofing around. However, the routine of playing this game on rainy days has had some sort of Pavlovian affect on the dogs (did not know this could happen) so now if we are walking outside and it starts to rain, Hogzilla will instinctually start running in circles and Peaky will jump onto my back. This causes problems because once we were in the park and it started pouring and Hogzilla went ballistic and ran around a jungle gym and the jungle gym (along with all the kids playing on the jungle gym) got wrapped up in his tornado and disappeared into the sky and I couldn’t even deal with this because Peaky was gnawing and scratching on my neck and I was trying to calm him by singing the Aladdin song. I like to think that the jungle gym ended up in an actual jungle so, in a way, Hogzilla was just putting it back where it belonged. Also, we got to be on the news!

As you can imagine, transportation can be tricky when you live with dogs big and small. Cars are impossible. Once Hogzilla climbed into my Mercedes and the car’s suspension tried to counter his massive girth but, alas, it could not so, alas, the car began to bend and contort and the metallic bending noises somehow formed the human words “take care of my grandma” and finally my poor car gave up and exploded and when the fire and smoke cleared Hogzilla was standing there, unscathed, wearing old-timey racing goggles. So, yeah, no car. A lot of people ask me why I don’t ride Hogzilla around town like he is some kind of weird horse. The answer is because he is terrified of horses (so cute) and even acting like a horse will cause him to shudder and piss. Instead of riding atop Hoggie’s back, he will graciously unhinge his jaw and allow me to climb into one of his massive jowls. It’s like a hammock.

Transporting Peaky is easy as he can fit inside of my pocket and is undetectable to most airline security measures. Hello, Hawaii!

Bathroom!!! When Hogzilla goes, you’ll know it. His poops, my god, I swear. It is like I have TWO Hogzillas (can you imagine??) I needed to buy a house with an abandoned grain silo on the property to store the stuff. It actually rules because I use his “makings” to fertilize my 200 acre leek farm. Our slogan is “Hoggy Farms: make a poop, take a leek (no hogs on premises)™.”

Peaky’s leavings are the exact opposite, they simply evaporate upon leaving his body. Don’t even make it to the ground. He won a blue ribbon once because of this.

“Enough of these differences,” you cry at me, tears streaming down your perfect face, “do Hogzilla and Peaky Blinders have any special team-up moves?”

Not really. This is real life, not some comic book video game. Except, I guess, sometimes Peaky will climb inside of Hogzilla’s jowl with me and it is like all of our powers combine. But we don’t fight crime or anything. We usually just go into town and watch people play chess in the park. I wish I knew how to play chess. Is it less boring if you know how to play? There are fucking knights and castles in it, why is it so boring?? Christ on a boat.

So there you have it. Despite these differences, my small dog Peaky Blinders, my big dog Hogzilla, my cat Boggles (not a fan) and I live in perfect harmony on our 200 acre leek farm in the heart of New York City. Come by for a tour sometime, but please not when it is raining. Bye.

1. You can eat as much cereal as you want, and all of it is FREE.

This might be more of a death hack than a thing all ghosts do. I was really good at hacking in life, so this makes sense. Once I put a boat motor on my longboard to make it go faster in the water and it worked great until I died. Here’s a quiz: what do you do when you are a ghost? Bingo: you haunt houses. Here is another quiz: what is literally in literally every house? Bango: cereal. You can use your ability to walk through walls (newsflash: this hurts a lot) to walk through locked cupboards and fridges and the like to find cereal, milk and blueberries. You can also use milk to write the word WILLIS* on the kitchen floor.

*I am haunting my friend Willis.

2. When you become a ghost, you don’t automatically have chains.

A lot of people believe that dead-heads (ghosts) like to rattle their ghostly chains at you. This is not true at all. When you wake up as a ghost, you are completely naked and so cold. You’re gonna want to grab anything you can grab and wrap them around your colorless body to keep warm. Sometimes that means chains. I was talking to another ghost at school (you have to go to ghost school for ten months) and she said she LITERALLY died wearing a bunch of chains, but when she woke up as a ghost? No chains! How crazy is that? I wonder how she is doing. Anyway, once you find good chains, you can use them to break into cupboards and get free cereal.

3. You can pick what kind of ghost you want to be.

When you graduate from ghost school, they let you pick between Ghost or Skeleton. They also ask if you want to go back in time to watch your own death. THIS IS A TRICK. What they do NOT tell you is that you can literally go back to any time in history and watch whatever you want. They just want you to learn from your mistakes or some big bunk. If I knew this was a trick, I would have went back to 1981 and watched my dad take my mom on their first date.

4. Everyone can see and hear you and it’s just like being alive.

One thing I definitely used to believe was that, when you become a ghouly-boy (ghost), it’s harder for you to go hang out with your buddies who aren’t big ghosts. Not true AT ALL. I woke up as a cold, naked ghost in the longboard unit of Long Island Jewish Hospital and immediately ran to Willis’s house to start haunting his cereal. When Willis answered the door he was surprised for, like, a hot minute and then we just hung out like old times before I had to go to school.

6. Sometimes ghosts will replace the word “you” with “boo.”

Spooky-Daddies and Haunty-Mommas (ghosts) will sometimes say things like “nice to meet boo” and “what do boo think of my chains?” or “ice to meet boo” (this one ghost died in some ice, I guess?) I tried to do this at first but it’s exhausting and I need my energy if I’m gonna stay up all night to scream and eat cereal and solve my own murder (I think I was murdered.)

8. You can still go on Facebook.

A fun part of being murdered is that you can go on all of your social medias and whatnot and read all of the nice things people are saying about you. This kid I haven’t spoken to in a million years who I kind of thought was a jag wrote “nice dude RIP” on my wall which was pretty nice considering he could have done nothing at all. Solid dude.

10. You can come back to life whenever you want.

Probably the most important thing I learned about being a body-chucker (ghost) is that, if you ever feel like you’re done being a ghost, you can come back to life. I guess everyone just loves being a ghost because of the free cereal and no work. Also, when you are a ghost you can break into the police station at night and tamper with evidence regarding your own murder case, and who would give that up? Also, you can fly.

11. Two words: Monster. Mash.

If you think you “get” the song Monster Mash you are dead wrong, hombre. I listened to it in the car this morning (ghosts can drive cars) and it fucking hit me like a murder weapon to my head. That song is so on the money. If you want to feel what it’s like to be dead but you still want to pay for cereal, do yourself a big favor and rent the song Monster Mash. It won’t take you all the way but it’ll give you an idea.

I hope boo enjoyed this list of ghostly facts. Have a happy Halloween, which we call Christmas. See you in hell!

- “Scary” Larry Ghoulihan

Hello, reader/best friend.

Download ︎︎︎

Medium︎︎︎

Captain Hippo︎︎︎

Ways That I Have Been Introduced

I Have One Big Dog and One Small Dog

︎︎︎Me (middle), Peaky, and Hogzilla circa 2018-ish

New York Cit vs. Los Angeles

︎︎︎The infamous Hoolywod sign in New York City.

Eleven Things They Do Not Tell You About Being A Ghostly Ghoul

︎︎︎Photographic proof of a ghost. ©Ghouly Images.

1. You can eat as much cereal as you want, and all of it is FREE.

2. When you become a ghost, you don’t automatically have chains.

3. You can pick what kind of ghost you want to be.

4. Everyone can see and hear you and it’s just like being alive.

5. Ghosts love to watch cooking shows.

6. Sometimes ghosts will replace the word “you” with “boo.”

7. You can’t pet your dog.

8. You can still go on Facebook.

9. You don’t have to go to work.

10. You can come back to life whenever you want.

11. Two words: Monster. Mash.

Hello, reader/best friend.

Download︎︎︎

Medium︎︎︎

Captain Hippo︎︎︎

Ways That I Have Been Introduced

I Have One Big Dog and One Small Dog

︎︎︎Me (middle), Peaky, and Hogzilla circa 2018-ish

New York Cit vs. Los Angeles

︎︎︎The infamous Hoolywod sign in New York City.

Eleven Things They Do Not Tell You About Being A Ghostly Ghoul

︎︎︎Photographic proof of a ghost. ©Ghouly Images.

1. You can eat as much cereal as you want, and all of it is FREE.

2. When you become a ghost, you don’t automatically have chains.

3. You can pick what kind of ghost you want to be.

4. Everyone can see and hear you and it’s just like being alive.

5. Ghosts love to watch cooking shows.

6. Sometimes ghosts will replace the word “you” with “boo.”

7. You can’t pet your dog.

8. You can still go on Facebook.

9. You don’t have to go to work.

10. You can come back to life whenever you want.

11. Two words: Monster. Mash.

Download ︎︎︎