Barking dogs. Barking dads. It’s a wonder I’m alive at all.

Someone had a funny line the other day about barking dogs. He wondered if, when we yell at the dog to stop barking, the dog is thinking: “This is awesome! Now we’re barking together!”

I think that represents the optimism of dogs. And the basic breakdown of communication in an American home.

We have the kind of household where the inhabitants start conversations from two rooms away, through closed bedroom doors, with the TV blaring.

In our house, the sound of two TVs overlapping happens far too often. I don’t like a TV blaring to begin with, and then when a second TV interferes with that, I want to stick Cheetos in my ears. It’s like when you’re driving on the freeway and a too-loud Harley overlaps with the awful rattle of a Kelly Clarkson song.

Of course, if you’re not a little jittery, you’re not really alive. Part of what attracts me to city life is the constant rumble of sirens, trucks, bus brakes and wives yelling at me. Were it not for that urban symphony – comprised of thuggish metallic screeches – I probably would’ve fled L.A. a long time ago.

My medicine man, Dr. Steve, put me on some pills recently to lower what he deemed “borderline high blood pressure.” We’d tried all the usual remedies first: diet, exercise, isolating me from the kids, but still the BP was a little high – not alarmingly so, just a tick or two above what he’d like, given my Irish temperament and proclivity for yelling at dogs and Prius drivers.

At least he’s paying attention. Dr. Steve races here and there, working out of the trunk of his rusty Eldorado, teaching at USC, writing novels, and he still finds a little extra time to worry about my health. I appreciate that in a doctor/professor/novelist.

Too many times, you see a doctor who isn’t emotionally engaged. Dr. Steve always shows up on time, looking doctoral in his crisp white jacket. He’s usually wearing a corkscrew around his neck, which is how you can tell he’s an L.A. doctor. If I were a family physician these days, I might start each day with a little toot as well.

Anyway, Dr. Steve asked whether I’d been under any extra stress. “No more than normal,” I said.

I reminded Dr. Steve that I’ve made a massive fortune in newspaper publishing, and that I now have more money than I could ever spend – though Posh could probably blow it all in one afternoon in the sock department at Target. And probably will very soon.

“So there’s that,” I explained.

“How about the kids?” he asked.

“I have kids?”

Turns out, yes, four of them. I told Dr. Steve that probably explains the ruckus around the house.

I explained to Dr. Steve that we live in the kind of home where the inhabitants start conversations from two rooms away, through closed bedroom doors.

From two rooms away, I can’t make out any actual words. I can only decipher a human voice a little panicked about something very urgent. Sometimes, they need a hand getting a big salad bowl down, or want me to fetch them a new roll of toilet paper from the garage.

Why we store the toilet paper in the garage is a valid question. It is the least convenient place you could ever keep toilet paper, and when you bring it in, it is often a little chilled. Let me assure you that whoever decided to store the toilet paper in the garage probably didn’t think it through.

Pretty sure it was me.

So I explain to Dr. Steve that we have a very loud house, with incessant yet minimal communication and cold toilet paper.

“It’s a wonder I’m still alive at all,” I tell the doctor.

“And the little guy?” Dr. Steve asks.

I tell my doctor that our youngest kid, now in the seventh grade, has reached the age where he picks up on naughty innuendo, which of course concerns his mother, the Reverend Posh (an Episcopal priestess).

The Reverend Posh blames me, of course. I explain that we knew this would happen the day we sent him off to kindergarten with all the other little cretins, and soon the sketchy social mores of an entire community would blend into a sketchy social mores soup.

“By second grade, they were all dating,” I remind her. “By third grade, many had eloped.”

I mean, that’s my fault? I’m the only calming presence in the place, the rare voice of reason, a fulcrum, a rock.

Me and the stupid dog, that is.

You should hear us bark together.

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Twitter: @erskinetimes

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