Why I Love My Nephews

She-who-must-be-obeyed and I had some light-hearted stationery made up, and it featured the drawings of a man, under whom was my name, a woman, under which was her name, and so on. You get the idea.

The last picture was a dog and under the dog was the name Carl.

This was my idea of a joke.

At the time, I did not own a dog: this was before the days when saints Cymbalta and Zoloft came to town on pilgrimage...and never left. I thought that I was allergic to the great, floppy things...as well as their small, diminutive, yappy cousins. When we visited people who did own dogs, and the great brute mastiffs jumped up on us,  or did that leg thingey, we did not gleam with delight.
When the owners said, "Rover, come on. So-and-so doesn't want you jumping all over him.", we did not contradict this observation. Sometimes I gave one of those sickly smiles and said, "Indeed. Indeed, Rover." Sometimes I frowned mightily, and said - as Ahab did to Stubb - "Down, dog, and kennel!"

When conversation turned to Antiquity, I would say things like  "You probably do know more about mediaeval Europe, living with the animals in the house as you do..."

Well, I had the dog placed on the stationery because I liked comic books.
When someone were to ask me (they never did ... which demonstrates the obstinate lack of interest of most people in the accoutrements and emblems that we bedeck our own lives with...unless we are certified celebrities) why we had a dog on the stationery, I would say, " Carl barks."
This, of course,  meant the Disney comic book artist of the 1940s and 1950s, Carl Barks.

My nephews did not ask. They saw the letter and drawings and went into gales of laughter. We indeed are kindred spirits.