Cold. Bad economy. Cowboys. Rangers...we need something, don't we?

Dog days: n pl 1: the period between early July and early September when the hot sultry weather of summer usually occurs in the northern hemisphere. 2. Period of stagnation or inactivity. (Thank you, Mr. Webster.)

That's what I'm talking about! An easy day -a dog day. Right?

Driving through west Texas on one of those long forgotten nice days, I pass a Dairy Queen equipped with this new fangled Star Trek tractor beam thingy that sucks cars off the highway. Jerked the wheel right out of my hands, it did.

As I walk in the front door and pause a minute to soak up some conditioned air, I glance at a handwritten sign hung crooked on the community cork board.

Reward

Lost brown and white mutt

Answers to name of Lucky

Small knot on right side of head

Call 325-555-1234

A dog named Lucky sporting a knot on his head? Hmmm.

Then there’s Uncle Clifford dog. When they tell stories about the dog, no one can remember its name but I’m sure it’s something equally as interesting as Lucky. Has to be because, as the story goes, Lucky Jr. was born without any back legs. When it was time to go, someone would pick the dog up by the tail and wheelbarrow him down the road. A Schwarzenegger tail muscle, no doubt. Probably a fairly tough nose, too.

And then there’s Muggins.

He was my dog when I was about eight or nine. My parents owned a small cabin about three hours from our house in the city and Muggins loved going to the cabin. Sometimes my mother would spirit him away for a quick Friday night to Sunday afternoon trip…just the two of them.

One winter evening while making the trip, mom decides stop at a McD’s drive-thru. It was bitterly cold out that night and begging for a hot sandwich with a steaming cup of coffee. As she rolls down the window to pay the cashier, the aroma off the grill hurries into the car. Mom gets her order, cranks the window shut and slowly slides forward in the snow.

Click, click, click.

Your biggest fear on any extended car trip in the middle of winter shivers around the “what is that sound?” scare. Mom slows the car to listen and see if she can figure out this terrible sound. Was it the brakes? The transmission? Front end issues?

If you haven’t guessed already, it was Muggins’ paws.

His snout was stuck in the window (grill aromas, right?) and his little paws were just a-flailin’ away on the glass, trying to pull himself out of the window.

So, dog days or tough times? I think it’s all point of view. Lucky was smart enough to run away, Stumpy was smart enough to get chauffeured around, and Muggins got half a hamburger and that’s 100% more than he was going to get before the window affair.

For these guys, no matter how bad the cards are in a particular hand, they never end up worse than even for the day, for one reason. Day always ends with a long, cool drink of water, a new comfortable position on a couch, a porch, or a rug and then the final, “days over” sigh.

So what’s the moral here?

Well who knows, Batman, but it appears to involve Dairy Queen, McDonald’s and someone grabbing my tail. I’m up for most of that.