I took my son to the park today, and I have a couple of observations that might help explain my misanthropy. First, anyone who grows a rat tail down the back of his child's neck should be beaten. In fact, if you are reading this and your kid has a rat tail, kindly email your address so I can come to your house and slap you in front of your family and neighbors. Think about the famous people who have had rat tails: Brian Bosworth and Billy Ray Cyrus. Even people with mullets look down on the rat tail. Its persistence in the shallow ends of some gene pools is a testament to the limits of Lamarckian evolution.

Second, I saw today one of the most moronic social spectacles I've ever witnessed. A woman showed up at the park with her two dogs on leashes, a big golden retriever and some shivering little rat-like creature. After letting the big one off the leash and then chasing him down no less than three times (here's a hint: if everyone at the park knows the name of your kid or your dog by the time you leave, you've got a discipline problem), she took him up onto the wooden play structure with her. She proceeded to drag her big and unwilling dog to the slide at one end of the structure, wrestled him onto her lap, and said "Whee!" as they slid down. When they got to the bottom she asked him, "Wasn't that fun?"

No, it was pathetic, even worse than rat tail boy. She did it one more time, and then, seeing that the little dog felt left out, she tethered the big one and took the little one for a slide. Even my two year-old son watched her with a look of astonishment and pity. By the last slide I had recovered the presence of mind to snap a picture. Look for it in a future edition.

Sand in the Gears: Your chronicle for the downfall of western civilization.