That's What You Get

Isn't it cute when dogs wear little sweaters? I think we can all agree that's cute. You show me a guy who doesn't like dog sweaters, and I'll show you a humorless troglodyte.

Then I'll show you a dog in a sweater, and we'll both laugh hysterically, making a special effort to bellow loudest in the direction of the troglodyte, whom we'll have decked out in a collar with a bell and a tag that reads "MY NAME IS JERKO. PLEASE SEND ME HOME. TO ANTARCTICA."

And in Antarctica, where he belongs, he'll find no doggy sweaters of any kind, which will be bitterly ironic since those fleecy amusements at which he turned up his nose might well have ended up being the only life-preserving insulatory garments available, so as his non-dog-sweater-loving face crinkles and freezes in place, the tip of that despicable nose will plink right off and disappear into the knee-deep snowdrift below. And he will wish, WISH he had a dog sweater of his own, if only to cradle the blackened nub of cartilage until the polar medical technicians can reattach it.

At his moment of greatest remorse, he'll squint through the piercing gale and just barely make out something black and white, waddling across the icecap. And it will be a penguin.

Wearing a raincoat.