Wednesday, July 29, 2015

THUNDERSHIRT!!! or why MamaGoof dreads summer storms

Regular readers of this blog (assuming there are any) know that I fall in love with words and ascribe unique meanings to them that are not in accord with the general understanding of the word.
Recently, I have taken to the word "Thundershirt" which is a product intended to calm dogs, who tend to find thunder nerve-wracking. Here is a very good natured dog I know who finds thunder scary, but who is now finally able to chill during a summer storm.

While the reasoning part of my brain appreciates this, the dominant part of my brain envisioned a thunder shirt as something a mild-mannered copy editor at a trade magazine for insurance adjusters (that's a pretty specific back-story because I've been thinking about this a lot) might put on to become ThunderBoy!
ThunderBoy flies around, creating storms, saving people (possibly in trouble from the storm he caused, and of course fighting super-super-villians.
I saw a little boy running around his house yelling, "Thundershirt! BOOM! Thundershirt! BOOM!"

Gentle reader, you undoubtedly know what happened next... I became that little boy running around my house yelling, "Thundershirt! BOOM!"

Since I work alone at home a lot, I would also text this to MamaGoof - who was seriously considering getting an actual thunder shirt for people to perhaps calm me down.

Instead, she sent me some helpful videos and this graphic about thunder shirts so that I would be properly informed and hopefully lose interest.


This graphic on how to use a thunder shirt does not come with written instructions. So I've rectified the situation below.


1. Place THUNDERSHIRT!!! on dog. To make full use of THUNDERSHIRT!!! dog must be airborne.

2. To lift off, flap THUNDERSHIRT!!! wings vigorously.

3. To land, fold wings in.

4. To stop dog from flying around, place food directly in dog's mouth.

WARNING: For use with dogs only. DO NOT USE with other household pets. Especially cats. SERIOUSLY, do not use this product with cats. For other pets and children of all ages, see our Cloudburst line of products.

2 comments:

janaki said...

only just discovered that you wrote a piece that included a photo of our dear Boxer. great (and very funny) post!!

Father Goof said...

Good news! GoofGirl made me a THUNDERSHIRT. Can't wait for a good storm so I have a chance to wear it. Does Boxer enjoy his fame amongst the FG community?