Growing up in the city, my parents allowed us to have a whole menagerie of pets to love. We had dogs (a lovely pair of basset hounds named Yardley and Bentley), cats (how I miss my Olly cat), fish (my goldfish lived for four years until my lovely dumbass brother fed him cornflakes), gerbils and a guinea pig named Beaver, a passel of rabbits and of course, birds. We had all of these animals at one time.

(I never realized how patient my mom really was until I just typed out the previous sentence. I would have lost my mind.)

Recently, I was sitting in my living room, listening to the soft snuffles of Nixon, the World’s Greatest Dog, Ever. softly snoring and I was struck with how quiet my house, and my life was. It never used to be this quiet. It was filled with the noise my youngest son would make when Fric and Frac were off at school.

The silence was deafening and it began to hurt my heart. I need noise to thrive. Must be my city roots where the whine of the sirens were like birds in the night.

So I got to thinking. What could I do to fill the noise? Sure, we’re trying to adopt a child, and hopefully he or she will be a noisy little bugger, but what if they aren’t? What then? What could I do to ensure my sanity? (What could I do to annoy my husband the most….?)

With the twittering of the birds in the background, it struck me. I’ll get a bird. I love birds. My grandparents gave me my first bird when I was ten. Not only will it fill my silent space, but it will teach my children another aspect of responsibility.

After researching every variety of bird available to man, I set off to find me a bird.

I came home with the sweetest pair of lovebirds a person ever did see. Keeping with the political theme I have going, I named one Abe (after Lincoln) and the other Lester (after Lester B. Pearson. He was a Prime Minister of Canada who won the Nobel Peace prize.)

Abe and Lester love me. They screech twitter whenever I walk towards their cage. And when I feed them, they flap around as if I’m a giant snake coming to swallow them perform acrobatics to impress me. Really, what more could I ask for?

And when they start chirping and screeching at 6 in the morning, I know it’s because they miss me so. I don’t care what my husband thinks, I know it’s not because they are freaking bird brains who don’t have the good sense to keep their beaks shut until a decent hour of the day.

My husband is suitably annoyed. And so is my dog, which I didn’t take into consideration. Apparently, he is mighty threatened by the presence of two little birdies in his home.

But I got my wish. My house is now filled with noise. The chatting screams of Abe and Lester echo through the halls. Generally followed with my dog barking his face off at them, my children whining about how noisy they are, and my husband standing in front of their cage bitching at them about how he has a B.B.gun and a pellet with their name on it.

It doesn’t get any noisier than this. (Yet another lesson to learn to be careful what you wish for…)

To celebrate my life filled with racket and din, I present to you this pun. It’s a cartoon that I swiped borrowed just for you. Enjoy!

It’s raining here. A depressing cold, quiet drizzle made to seem worse by the shivering of the trees surrounding my house. This means I’m stuck inside with two kids who are bound to get cabin fever before noon and a dog who is too much of a princess to get his paws wet to go outside to take a leak.

Which means I will be standing outside with him, getting my own damn skin wet while I whine, er, try to convince and encourage him to take a dump on my lawn. (And no, I can’t send the kids because my darling mutt only listens to me. Dumb dog.)

In light of this, I need the best damn cheese I can find to get through what is bound to be a long, wet, cold day.

However, I was only able to come up with some bargain-basement cheese, the type you have to scrape the mold off before you can eat it. Yum, moldy cheese. A magical cure for everything.

I really am a generous soul. Enjoy le bleu fromage!

John decided life would be much easier if he had a clone. So he had one made and sent him to work in his place while he stayed home and relaxed.

Soon this backfired when the clone came home and said he’d been fired for making sexual comments to the women in the office.

John decided, he had to get rid of his clone before things got any worse. John took his clone to the top of a tall building and pushed him off.

Unfortunately, someone saw John and he was arrested and convicted for making an obscene clone fall.

(Should I apologize or just bury my head and pretend I don’t know the pun was awful?)

It’s a fine day for some stinky cheese. Allow me to offer you some of my most malodorous cheese.

I’m off to be attacked by the giant size mosquitos who make my flesh their buffet and my yard their home, while I fry under the heat of the blazing sun and lounge around, doing absolutely NOTHING on such a beautiful day.

Enjoy le fromage and your day!

Not many people know it, but the Devil actually wears a wig. You’d never know if you weren’t told - it’s a perfect fit. Anyway, down in the world of fire and brimstone one guy did find out, and he decided to have a little practical joke. So one night, he sneaks past the guardian demons and manages to get all the way into Satan’s bed chamber, whereupon he steals the hair-piece and makes good his escape.

Well, of course the Devil was most displeased by this, and he rounds up his demons, and demands to know which of them had been so lazy as to let someone sneak past them. Naturally, none of them owns up, which makes him even madder: So he calls a general meeting of everyone the underworld: everyone has to attend.

The meeting is held in a huge cavern, and it’s absolutely packed (except for the odd gap in the crowd, where there’s a lava-pit or bottomless fissure in the floor). As Satan steps up to speak, everyone sees that he’s got no hair, and peals of laughter start echoing out around the hall.

The devil bellows at them to be quiet, and a deadly hush falls.

“Whoever stole it,” he shouts, “had better return it immediately!” And here he paused for effect…

“Or else there’ll be Hell Toupee!”

(Even I’m cringing at that one!)