Our cruel master is always criticizing us and complaining that we aren’t worth the money he spends on us. A typical example is our water dispenser. Whenever he has to fill it up–which is all of once a week–he tells us, “Well, there goes the water bill. You dogs are drinking me out of my retirement savings.” Or he will say something like, “So much for getting that 62-inch wide screen TV–I have to pay the water bill instead, driven sky high by you dogs.” Or he will threaten us: “I can’t afford to pay these huge water bills that you dogs are costing me. I’m going to have to cut back on your water or I’ll soon go broke.”

A couple of days ago, we could stand this no longer. We were actually starting to feel guilty about how much water we are drinking. But before we tried going thirsty, we decided to take a look at the water bill. That was easy, because our master is a total and complete slob in his housekeeping. Receipts are stuffed in a low wire basket where they can be rifled through by a short dog without any problem.

So we put our noses to good purpose and shoved papers around until we found a recent water bill. To our surprise, the charge for the water itself was only $3.64 for a month! And even adding the water service charge brought the total to only $11.39. Then we looked at the water usage. It was 2992 gallons. At the water-plus-service-charge rate, that’s .38068 cents per gallon. Our water container holds half a gallon and our stingy master fills it about once a week. So that means we drink about two gallons a month. And that means that the cost of the water we drink is about .7636 of a cent. Yes, only a bit over three quarters of a cent per month.

Then the horrifying thought occurred to us that perhaps our cruel master is our crazed master instead, a fiend who believes that we are actually costing money for water. That thought is so disturbing that we need to stop now.