School children of today have a hard luck life.  No longer can they blame their missing homework on the dog.  The dog doesn’t know how to eat the homework on their laptop because that kind of bytes are more or less inedible.  Except for my daughter Lisa’s dog, Toby.

Toby is a Cairn Terrier, and he will eat anything.  With gusto.  One time we were walking along the lake at Seattle’s Magnuson Park.  This park is heavily visited by Canadian Geese.  Lisa was leashed to two of her other dogs and I was supposed to be leashed to Toby.  I couldn’t hardly keep up with him, though, because he was dashing this way and that, ravenously scarfing up everything he could off the sidewalk.

“Lisa”, I yelled, “Is it okay for him to be eating all this stuff he’s finding on the sidewalk?”

“Not really”, she yelled back, “It’s goose poop.”

Ew-w. That was the last time I ever let that dog sit on my lap or next to me in the car.

Toby has been know to eagerly ingest stones, sticks, cigarette butts, gum, crayons, and even very small toys.  Last year, he had to have major surgery to have about two pounds of sand removed from his intestines.  I don’t want to remember why he was eating sand but it’s sure to be related to some gross feature of the food chain that I’d rather not know about.

Please feel free to cite Toby as the eater of your homework, though.  He would be more than happy to oblige.

The following homework assignment got handed in in time so Toby wasn’t needed.  It was for a class my granddaughter Erica Opsvig is enrolled in at the University of Washington. It’s a class in digital communication technology.

The assignment was produced by Erica’s fellow student Melissa Mitchell. She was to do a digital presentation about another student in the class.  Enter Erica and a day in the life.   Ta-da!

Here’s a photo of producer Melissa.

In my day, homework consisted of algebra problems and conjugating Latin sentences. This looks like a lot more fun.

Melissa named the show “Body of Ice and Feet of Fire”.  I thought you and Toby might enjoy watching it.  Even though no refreshments will be served.

Good work, Melissa!  * * * * * (Five stars).