^{I Got Plans}

So I took my daughter to a frisbee dog competition the other day. You've probably seen this kind of stuff killing time on ESPN2. There are two kinds of competitions. One is a freestyle, set to music and rated by a panel of judges on style, number of tricks, and, I don't know, costume design or something. The other is a more objective toss and fetch where you get 90 seconds to throw a single frisbee to your dog as many times as you can and you get points depending on the distance of each catch.

I swear, sometimes kids in the 12 to 18 month range can be amused by a bucket of water or a clump of grass. Once, my daughter spent a good forty minutes playing with three refrigerator magnets (two fish and a dog, for all you parents out there). Other times, you need dancing bears, literally, to keep them entertained for longer than four seconds. Here, I had actual dogs doing backflips to catch frisbees and after two dogs, she got distracted by a clump of grass.

I think I know what it is. She reads a lot of kids' books so as far as she's concerned, dogs can talk, ride bikes, fly planes, and dress themselves. Really, why should she be entertained by a dog chasing a frisbee? Even our dog, who has a strong refusnik streak, can catch a frigging frisbee.

That's where I got my big idea. I figured, what the hell, I have a dog, I have two or three frisbees. Why don't I train for the frisbee dog circuit? After all, how tough could it be? Some of these competitors appeared to have spent far too much time in the sun getting whacked on the head with a frisbee, leaving them only a couple of IQ points ahead of their dogs, if that.

I thought maybe I should revolutionize the sport of dog frisbee. (Frisbee dogging?) Sort of like what Scott Hamilton did with ice skating, only I would be straight and most of the work would be done by my dog. The magic of dog frisbee, as I see it, is that I wouldn't have to do much. I just throw the things, my dog Casey has to run and jump and do backflips.

Casey dashed my plans when she figured out, after three or four throws, that she didn't have to jump for the frisbee since it would eventually fall back to earth where any surly dog can just pick it up and chew it into a little spiky crescent of plastic. I tried to entice her with some of the more dynamic tricks of the dog frisbee world. While she showed great enthusiasm for jumping on me, she showed little willingness to jump from me to the frisbee and so the frisbee dog world will have to get a different revolutionary.

But the kernel of my idea, I thought, was still valid, inasmuch as it concerned me and little work. So I thought, what else would get me out in the sun, not doing much and it hit me: I'll be a running back for the Patriots. See, the Patriots have hardly anything in the way of an offensive line and the few "offensive linemen" on the team have already injured themselves, I think on the turnstiles on the way into the stadium. So what could you really expect from a running back?

I ran this idea past my wife, who wisely pointed out the risks of a perpetual mauling by seven or eight steroid freaks. She's right, of course. Someone is going to get tackled in the Patriots backfield on every play and it would either be Drew Bledsoe, who is worth a lot of money, or me.

And that's how I arrived at my current brilliant idea: I'll be a Patriots offensive lineman. From what I can tell, there are openings and the job's easy to get. The only responsibilities are to stand up once in a while and turn sideways. It's basically like being a doorman. My wife thinks this is a better idea and said I could try out for the team as soon as I make weight. I've got a hundred and seventy pounds or so to go, and believe me, I'm working hard. Well, not too hard.