My wife and I are on our way to have dinner at the home of a couple I’ve never met. I speak first.
So, tell me about these people.
Well, Betsy’s an interior designer and her husband, Gene, is a podiatrist.
Great.
They’re very nice people.
I’m looking forward to meeting them.
Oh, and one more thing.
What’s that?
They have a dog.
O.K.
A standard French poodle.
O.K.
That wears a football helmet.
Excuse me?
Alan …
Does their dog also spike its bowl after it finishes its dinner?
Alan …
Why are you saying “Alan” that way? You’re telling me their pet poodle wears a football helmet, and now I’m the schmuck in this conversation? What team?
Alan …
I’m sorry, what I meant to say was: “Why does their standard French poodle wear a football helmet?”
Apparently, when he was a puppy, they trained him to come when they called his name. Which worked great, except that when he came running, he had trouble stopping because his standard-French-poodle nails were too long, so he kept skidding on the marble floors until he smashed into the wall.
Yikes.
And this eventually became a conditioned reflex to the point that whenever the dog heard his name, he just got up and ran straight into the nearest wall.
Oh, my.
Hence, the football helmet.
Robin?
What?
Why don’t they just change the dog’s name, clip its nails, carpet the floors, and start all over?
I asked Betsy the same question.
And?
And she started to cry.
Because?
Because they got the dog right after her father died and named it after him. Betsy and her dad were very close. In fact, they have his ashes on a high shelf in their living room.
So, she wants to honor her dead father’s memory by having her dog slam his helmeted skull into a wall whenever he hears his name? Interesting tribute.
Alan …
O.K., O.K. So, what’s the dog’s name?
Elon.
Elon?
Yes, so whatever you do, don’t say the name Elon tonight.
Gotcha.
Twenty minutes later. The ride home. I speak first.
Well, that certainly doesn’t happen a lot. Leaving a dinner party before the dinner is served.
I’m not sure if we left or escaped. Boy, were they pissed.
As am I. My head really hurts from that vase falling on it.
Stop calling it a vase, Alan. It was an urn.
Fine, it was an urn.
Filled with Betsy’s beloved father’s beloved ashes that rained down all over you.
Tell me about it.
And Betsy wants him back. All of him.
Well, I gave her my sweater.
Right …
And my socks.
Right …
And my pants. Jesus, I haven’t been this undressed in a car since our third date.
And what about your hair?
When we get home, I’ll comb her dad out and leave him in their mailbox on my way to the gym in the morning. O.K.?
I guess so. I still can’t understand why you said the dog’s name when I urged you not to.
I didn’t say the dog’s name.
Alan …
Look, Gene and I were talking politics, and all I said was that aside from O. J. Simpson, I can’t think of another person who’s fallen from grace as far as Elon Musk, who went from being a vaunted businessman with key roles in Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter to a hatchet man who’s helping Trump destroy our democracy.
Alan, that dog didn’t hear a single syllable after you said his first name—pretty much like I just didn’t.
But it was a different Elon altogether!
Doesn’t matter.
Why?
Because as intelligent as they are, standard French poodles don’t differentiate between their own name and that of the head of DOGE, whose children have names from another galaxy.
So, there’s no regard for context?
Apparently not.
Well, I’m sorry I screwed up, and I promise I’ll be more careful next time we go there for dinner.
You honestly think they’re going to invite us back after what happened tonight?
Why not?
Alan, at this very moment Betsy is vacuuming portions of her father out of their drapes.
What if we invite them to dinner at our place?
You really want to see them again? After she called you a “fucking imbecile”?
She did?
And after he said he hopes your mother’s ass locks?
He really said that about my mother’s ass?
While he was chasing you waving that steak knife.
My mother’s 95-year-old ass?
Yes, Alan …
My 95-year-old mother’s practically nonexistent ass?
Yes.
My 95-year-old mother’s used-to-be-very-attractive-when-I-was-growing-up-and-my-seventh-grade-friends-used-to-like-seeing-her-in-a-two-piece-bathing-suit ass?
Alan …
What?
This conversation is getting a little weird, don’t you think?
Probably.
Hungry?
Very.
Want to go to that new Italian place everyone’s raving about? We’ll just need to stop at the house so you can throw on a pair of pants first.
Sure.
Great.
Seriously, though, you should’ve seen my mother’s ass back then.
Alan!
All right, all right …
Alan Zweibel, an original Saturday Night Live writer, is the Thurber Prize–winning author of 11 books, including the cultural memoir Laugh Lines: My Life Helping Funny People Be Funnier