Dear Jim,
Dear Jim:
My boyfriend and I are about to take the big step of moving in together. I love him and he loves me. But there is one problem. He wants to keep his pet goat and to park it in the living room, the same as he did when growing up in his parent’s home and the same as he does now in his efficiency apartment. I am an interior decorator by trade. As such, I was looking forward to turning our love nest into an esthetic masterpiece, but feel that a live goat will clash with my plan.
Signed,
Gets-my-goat
Dear Gets-my-goat:
This seems like a two-part problem.
Problem #1: What are you doing falling in love with a guy who keeps a goat in his living room? True, his being a throw-back kind of guy — that is, back to the Ukraine of the 1750s — could be a breath of fresh air, if you disregard the barnyard odor that will no doubt infuse your living room, but still…Does your human steed buy his milk at a supermarket? Or does he just lean forward from the couch and squeeze out something to pour over his cereal? But who am I to talk. I once fell in love with a girl who was cursed with the name of Gladys, and, yes, she always appeared to me wearing a drab dress while being filmed in static black and white. So let us just assume that there is more to your boyfriend than an unstaunched loyalty to his goat.
Problem #2: What does a young Martha Stewart do with a goat in her living room? I would ask the actual Martha this question, but she just left to get an oil change at Jiffy Lube. Hmm, I guess the best thing to do would be to adapt the décor to the cloven-hoofed animal in your midst. Use a barnyard motif to go with the barnyard odor, and then tell your pretentious friends that your goal in fixing up the place in such an unconventional manner was authenticity. Phony people love the word “authenticity,” no matter how smelly it is in practice.
You can even use the goat when you entertain your snooty friends. What you do is create a chip and dip holder in the form of a saddle that you put on the goat, and then have the goat walk person to person offering a delicious appetizer – and think of the money you will save in wait staff. Then, after dinner, when the party moves back into the living room, you hang a dart board on the goat. Now I am sure that members of your uppity crew are animal-loving liberals; as such, imagine how interesting the game will be when the players have the added incentive of making sure they don’t puncture the goat with an errant shot and thereby invite comparisons to Mike Vick. I hope this helps.
Signed,
TheJimGalaxy
