“Phooey!” I grumbled, knocking the bowl so the kibble spilled all over the bed. That felt pretty good, but one of Mom’s two-handed face rubs would have felt even better.

With everyone trapped at home, the world would need a protector to keep an eye on things to herd everyone back together when it was safe to come out again. That hero would need a sidekick. A referee who knew how to twist silly rules until they made sense again and wield Murphy’s Law to make impossible things happen, like bringing rain to the desert. The fate of the world rested on its globe-trotting hero, Tintin Quarantino and his faithful referee-sidekick, the Weather Jinx.

“They’re outlawing friendship?” I whimpered. I would never be able to hide my friendliness for long enough to stay out of trouble. “They can’t really send you to the pound for charisma, can they?”

“If you can pick your problems,” I coached, “maybe you shouldn’t see wet socks as a problem at all. You would have less to worry about if dry socks weren’t something that you expected from life.”