Looking back, I guess it was a mistake. Not one of those mistakes where you misspell “hedgehog” on a report or put evaporated milk instead of condensed milk in the pumpkin pie. Not the kind where you apply lipstick instead of chapstick to yourself before the big photo shoot or send the President a sample of cologne you really like in a jar marked in your native Arabic. It was more like when you’re trying to explain morality and conscience to your friend and you tell him that all he’s got to do is listen to that voice in his head that tells him what’s right and what’s wrong—and then you find out, two arsons, three dead veterinarians and a News Special on CBS later, that he’s a schizophrenic. More like playing miniature William Tell with a cherry, a .22, and your neighbor’s toddler. That said, I’m sorry.

But I still think there’s something to be said in my defense, and that is, “Never trust a German.” Because the whole incident would have been short-circuited if my German Shepherd, Janie Doll Cutie Pie, had listened to me when I was planning the joke. I told him specifically not to bite anyone, and what’s he have to do when he sees my little sister and her clique? Janie Doll was after them like a shark after, uh, after a big fish! I guess a lot of big fish. I remember seeing my sister’s friends, thinking, “This might be a temptation for my Little Puppums,” and looking Janie Doll Cutie Pie right in the eyes and telling him, “Your role in this assault is to growl menacingly and not bite anyone.” Maybe Sweetie and I have a bit more of a communication problem than I thought. Or maybe he was doing it out of spite. Matter of fact, if it was up to me, my Little Puppums would be on trial and I’d be at home being seduced by someone. Someone with nice white teeth and a sailor hat. What was I talking about anyway?

…Oh, and see how I just got distracted? That’s kind of what happened when Janie Doll went into overdrive. At first, I was thinking, “Oh no, I’d better call Animal Control on my cell phone,” but then I thought, “Hmmm. I really need a haircut.” And once I got thinking about my haircut, I didn’t even notice the gory combat on the field until I had my 4:00 appointment for Thursday. Even then, the first thing I noticed was how shaggy Janie Doll’s coat was. Even spattered with blood, it didn’t have that sheen, that personality that made it so—wait a second, spattered with blood? See, when I finally realized that my little practical joke had misfired, it was too late, and the police were already helping me into the patrol car. I think I genetically inherited this tendency towards distraction from my little brother, ‘cause he’s got it too.

I know it looked suspicious, me all dressed up in a Nazi uniform and holding a hunting rifle, but it was all in good fun. And the guy on the street that I bought the gun from told me that if I paid him an extra ten bucks for the gun, he’d make sure the ammo was blank like I wanted. (That’s when it makes noise but doesn’t actually kill anyone.) He said he put it through his special blanking machine in his pocket. Well, he owes me ten bucks now, because his machine sucks. Officer Henderson said that the ammo could have killed a bear. I told Officer Henderson that that was nothing, I could kill a bear with my bare hands, but he didn’t get the pun and he wasn’t convinced. Next thing I knew, I was in jail. And to make it even worse, they took the gun! I’m voting against the incumbent Police Chief next year.

On the bright side, I ended up in the same cell as this really old guy who was arrested for indecent exposure. He wasn’t a pervert or anything, he just said he got used to excitement in World War II and just got so bored at his nudist retirement colony that he had to leave. I learned quite a bit from Bernie. For one thing, I learned never to try and talk about movies with old people. You get a whole planned conversation in your head, where you’re going to say “Have you seen Three Ducks and a Bulldozer? Remember that funny social worker? I was just thinking that Warden Brown reminds me of him,” but you get as far as “Have you seen…” and old people just say “No. I haven’t. And I never will.” Sorry, distracted again. The important thing is, Bernie taught me that practical jokes just aren’t funny sometimes. He told me about the time he tried to scare his buddies in the 1st Infantry by rigging grenades inside their mess kits. Bernie and me, we got a good laugh out of that one, but the lesson was, sometimes you have to leave people alone. No Nazi uniform, no hunting rifle, no German Shepherd, no frag grenades. In fact, Bernie said, you have to try pretty hard not to kill people sometimes.

So you can see that I’ve learned from my jail time and my mistakes. I’ll make sure to keep Janie Doll on a leash and buy hunting rifles and ammo only from licensed street vendors. Now, the sailor hat idea… Well, we’ll see where that goes.