Gary Shelton

I'd rather be watching the Grit Channel ("Television with Backbone"), which broadcasts old Western movies and TV shows 24/7. There are more cowboys on that channel than have ever lived in the history of the world. If you turn on Grit and see someone without a hat or a bonnet, you're looking at a horse.

How many of you are fortunate enough to have a younger brother? I have endured that good fortune for most of my life, and though I will readily admit that as a grown man he has some redeeming traits.

Ernie likes to go with me to the pharmacy because, if she plays her cards right, I'll get her a piece of jerky there. She considers the pharmacy beef jerky to be among the best in the world. Also, should she accompany me inside, someone is sure to fawn all over her and shower her with pets and smooches.

One summer’s day after church, when I was in first or second grade, one of the big-hatted, blue-haired ladies of the St. Leo’s congregation asked me, within earshot of my father, what I wanted to be when I grew up. I answered, without a moment’s doubt, “I want to be a hobo!”

Dr. Pisberg is our family doctor, and sometimes I wonder about him. Mostly, I wonder if he can account for his whereabouts from 1933-1945 or so. Like any true sadist, he also knows that words can hurt much worse than sticks and stones or reflex hammers and tongue depressors.

Maybe cows aren't dumb. Maybe they're extraordinarily crafty at achieving their true goal: to make ranchers miserable.

But then, one morning a few weeks ago, there was a picture of a new dog named Ernie. She's five months old, a rescue from Wolf Point. Reservation dogs, if you don't know this already, are the best dogs in the world.

What if Montana had a professional sports team? Well, then I'd be obligated to be a fan. But let's think even bigger. Let's not go with any of those boring, quotidian sports that everyone else plays. Let's invent our own.

I went to the cow then, for a friendly visit, only to discover she was in a fit of bovine rage. This, too was not a good sign. As a fat old man, I figure it was about even odds in a fair fight, but I refused to die without another cup of coffee, so I started to trudge back to the house when I noticed it: a wretched little bundle of white, barely visible amidst the snow.

But what did they taste like? Reader, they tasted like chicken nuggets. Even as I write, I am tempted to add something like "they taste, that is, like chicken nuggets if chicken nuggets were made of boogers." My dogs, they loved them!

Well, it wasn't long before I got an email from Airbnb and another from VRBO. Phrases like "not legitimate sleeping quarters" and "fraudulent listing," unkind and pernicious words like "violation of terms of service" and "permanently deactivated" were repeated in both.

When I was a child, people always told me to savor it because these are the best years of your life. Again and again, hideous old relatives would stoop over, push their ponderously swollen grown-up heads into my childhood airspace, and assure me that this was the best it was ever going to get.

You see, I think I've got great stories. I take any opportunity I can to spin them. So much so that my family and the majority of my friends have heard them all five times - once with genuine appreciation and four times with mounting irritation.