The other night I noticed Winston joyously batting one of his toys across our kitchen floor. I had just given him a new catnip fuzzball, and I watched him peer under the fridge and run into the pantry. Then he batted the toy through the air, about four feet across the kitchen. But the object he batted through the air didn’t have the fluorescent pink and green of the catnip toy. This object looked long and tan. Did he have a bug?

I walked into the kitchen to investigate. The scorpion Winston had just batted across the room looked up at me. I grabbed Winston and bolted out of the kitchen while Greg came in to do battle. He sqaushed it with our Swiffer.

Winston missed the killing because I had quarantined him in our office. For the rest of the night, he just was not convinced the scorpion was gone. He spent about an hour roaming our kitchen, looking under the fridge and sniffing along the baseboards. He desperately wanted his toy back. I kept offering the catnip fuzzball to him, but he just walked away from me with his butt sticking up in the air. What fun is a little piece of cotton when you can play with a venimous insect?

We are incredibly grateful for Winston’s hunting skills. If it hadn’t been for his work, one of us — probably me — would have stepped on that hideous creature in the middle of the night.

Now Greg wants to get another cat so we have twice the military force. So far I think Winston can handle the insurgency.

Greg and I took Abe to a state park today that was about 90 miles east of Austin. We drove through the boonies to get there. On the way back, we saw a man on the side of the road selling some sort of produce. As we passed, we read his sign: Knives, $2 or $3 each.

“I’ve never seen that before,” Greg said.

“Well, what did you think he was going to be selling?” I asked. “Peaches?”

I’ve been trying to convince Greg to take Abe to the office with him. Abe spends a lot of time home alone, and he needs to socialize better with humans and other dogs. So I figure Greg’s office is the perfect place for Abe to rid himself of his barking and growling habits. Greg disagrees. As we drove to work a couple days ago, I pestered him.”When are you going to bring Abe with you?” I asked.

“Sarah, I don’t know how to tell you this … and I don’t want to upset you, but Abe is more of a blue-collar dog,” Greg said.

“What?” I screeched.

“I’m not saying he’s dumb,” Greg said. “He’s smart. But he just doesn’t like to sit in a cubicle all day. He needs to be doing some sort of manual labor.”

“OK, but I don’t know about him joining a union or anything,” I said. “And technically he’s a green-collar dog.”