A Dark day for “Dark Horse”

A while ago my wife and I were ready to settle in for a relaxing evening to watch the movie Dark Horse we’d recently received from Netflix. I checked the usual spot on our stairs where I lazily would toss the disc before we were ready to watch it. Not finding the disc, I began my oft-repeated routine of searching the house for an item I’m certain my wife has moved, only to find in it some ridiculous spot where I “temporarily” set it.

After a futile search of the house, I decided to venture out to what I call “Winnie’s Wasteland”, a bleak area of our yard where one can find bits of chewed paper, gnawed plastic flower pots, even a mangled mouse trap. Sure enough, the blood red carnage of the Netflix envelope lay strewn across the landscape. The partial remains of the disc were located in a shallow grave covered with a bit of mulch.

The forensic analysis of teeth marks on the disc quickly pointed to a suspect of the canine persuasion. Given the checkered past of our dog Winnie and her previous conviction for chewing up my wife’s copy of The Elements of Style, we quickly eliminated our other dog Mars as a suspect. When confronted with the physical evidence, Winnie’s sad puppy dog eyes act soon fell apart and she revealed her guilt by slinking off to her safe spot in the corner of our bedroom.

Winnie has yet to divulge the motive for this brutal assault. Perhaps she felt threatened by the larger, stronger main equine character of the film. Perhaps she found the story line a bit too predictable. We may never know. However, one thing I do know is that Netflix does not accept “the dog ate my DVD” as a reason for not returning one of their discs.