0
0
I don’t use slippers.
Slippers are for people who feel like they need…..
Slippers.
I use an old pair of Brooks tenner shoes instead.
I can’t call them tennis shoes because a) I don’t play tennis, and 2) Patrick McManus once wrote a brilliant bit about his “tenner shoes”.
My Brooks house shoes (not slippers) were my regular pair of shoes about 5 years ago. Having worn down the treads during all of those lockdown walks with the TharpSter Treadmill, they lost their ability to provide the support I need in my day-to-day footwear.
Thus, they were relegated to a role of being worn as house shoes.
I have a distant memory from my youth where Dad’s house shoes were called “housers”. Is that a thing?
Yes, “housers” could very well have been a real thing in your dad’s vocabulary. It fits the pattern of affectionate shorthand for everyday gear. If it wasn’t broadly regional, then your family might’ve minted it themselves — and frankly, that makes it even better.
The laces get loosened and never tied. This makes them easy to slip on to my flat feet with the fallen arches (the aftermarket arch supports are still present) in the same manner as a pair of…..
Slippers.
For the record, you can’t spell “slippers” correctly without the letters L, I, S, and P.
This morning, I opted to sleep in. When I dragged my fallen arches out of bed at the late hour of 7 am, I found that one of my slip— er…. Brooks running shoes was missing.
For me to call any of my shoes a “running” shoe is also ironic.
Fortunately, the events of this last Saturday here at the organization provided a simple answer for why only one shoe was present and accounted for.
I could literally hear the other shoe in the living room.
Go ahead and ask how I could hear it. You know you want to.
Last Saturday, after coming off of a 17 day period where we celebrated the lives of five loved ones with various funerals, memorial services, and a guerilla style spreading of ashes, we did the next logical thing.
We attended a birthday party for one of the children whose father was one of those loved ones we celebrated just days before.
After that, we went to the Humane Society and spent about an hour prompting an A.I. engine not about “housers”, but about names for a 3 month old, recently neutered, Weimaraner.
It’s been just over three months since Charlie (aka Mag-B the SLab) retired from her position as the Chief Fetching Officer so that she could go play in a meadow somewhere with all of the dogs which have graced our lives over the years.
Banjo was his name at the Humane Society. He and his seven best friends who were near him were born a few days after Charlie passed.
Banjo needed to be renamed. I saw an unsettling Ned Beatty movie many years ago, and it featured a banjo.
So we prompted A.I. for a wide variety of names from songs, Texas locations, favorite foods, movies, bands, and even selections from his German heritage.
German-Lite, with Swagger
- Otto – Easy, punchy, and kinda fun to shout. Bonus: sounds like he’s in charge.
- Rolf – Tough name for a dog who may or may not be a giant marshmallow.
- Klaus – Slightly grumpy, slightly regal. Think “curmudgeon with a crown.”
- Fritz – Bouncy, quirky, full of personality. Sounds like trouble in corduroy pants.
- Hansel – Just enough fairy tale. Works ironically if he eats everything except breadcrumbs.
Honestly, some of those remind me of the letters needed to spell “slippers” so we went a little more regal:
🧢 Irony Layer: English Titles + German Names
- Baron Fritz von Squirrelbane
- Otto the Begrudging
- Sir Arlo of Barkenburg
- Maximilian von Carpetmunch
- Major Klaus von Wigglebutt
But then, when he was on the verge of being named “Nacho”, another category came up.
🧸 Classic ’80s–’90s Toy Names (with Dog-Worthy Energy)
- Stretch – Stretch Armstrong. Works great for a lanky dog or one who somehow ends up on the counter.
- Slinky – For the goofball who falls down stairs with flair.
- Tonka – Strong, chunky, built for destruction. (That’s your couch, not the backyard.)
- Lincoln – Lincoln Logs. Sounds dignified… until he pees on the carpet.
- Teddy – Timeless, loyal, maybe a little dopey, and definitely into cuddles.
And there we had it.
With the name in hand, we had to do one more thing.
We had to change the breed.
The spelling of the breed has too many vowels, it’s hard to spell — especially if spelling counts —, and it’s a little too German and not American enough for my taste.
I could certainly spend the next several years butchering the correct spelling of that breed name, or just redesignate the breed.
Just know that I’ve updated the custom dictionary on my machine to accept the redesignation without giving me a silly red line underneath.
It’s a glorious portmanteau:
Weimaraner + Wiener = WeinerRammer.
Elegant. Suggestive. Highly inappropriate if said out loud in mixed company.
It sounds like a retired German military vehicle or a rejected Hot Dog on a Stick mascot. Either way, it fits his energy.
Just to summarize, we have a 3 month WeinerRammer we adopted last week. The breed name is especially ironic since he’s recently neutered. A.I. was too polite to call that out.
This morning while we slept, the puppy entered the room and fetched my slip– er… shoe without permission and proceeded to gnaw on it and an the aftermarket arch support in the living room in the most audible of fashions.
As for his name, I’ll say that when I saw it suggested, I flashed back to the days when I was a child and those things were made with just enough metal to induce a concussion or even tetanus with applied correctly.
Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
There comes a time in all of our lives when you just gotta adopt a dog and change its name and breed in one fell swoop, and we’ve done exactly that.
I give you Tonka the WeinerRammer.
