RUPERT REVEALED

I have a dog to unload if anyone's in the market.

His tricks include sitting, shaking, coming when he's called and this newly discovered ability: tricking me — for years on end —into believing that Mabel was the mastermind and sole perpetrator of various household crimes and misdemeanors.

When I came home to this carnage today, Mabel did not have a speck of evidence on her.

P.S. This may look like an easy-to-clean-up mess — just get out the vacuum, right? Wrong. That white stuff is flour — flour that has been dampened by the big tongue of a dog eager to consume it. It doesn't sweep up. It's stuck like a hardened paste, like that gunk you use with papier-mâché. I have to figure out a way to get it off without scratching the crap out of my wood floor. I may tan Rupert's hide and use it as a mop, for starters.

P.P.S. If you're tempted to suggest this was my fault for leaving the flour out, zip it.