for the love of trouble

*

oh, puppies.    last night they got into my yarn stash and tangled four skeins of the *expensive* yarn to holy hell.   it's hard to get mad at those cute little faces, those big sad eyes, but i do my obligatory reprimanding, theatrical stomping and a deep booming voice, shaking the yarn at them, asking sternly whooo did this?  was it youuuu?  i'm silently laughing to myself as they both hide under the bed, tails tucked, until i decide it's over.  somehow, they seem to know while they're doing something mischievous that they're in the act of being bad boys.  but they still grab at socks, every now and again, after ripping holes in many a heel.  they know it's wrong.  but it's a guilty pleasure, that stinky sock tastes so damn good!, and defines the bad boy mentality to the core:  getting into trouble is half the fun!  i know these patterns well, i've watched it unfold time and again: i've been surrounded by "bad boys" my entire life, including my father, who hides it fairly well in his work clothes, (but i know better), including my brother, who has somehow lived through and witnessed more than what could be seen in a season of Cops, including a large portion of my friends and including nearly every fella i've ever dated.  but that's part of why i love em, what i love about them.  hell, my mamma was no angel, and  neither am i.  and maybe that's why i've always been drawn to "rebels": i do deeply understand the desire to bend the rules, to break the rules, to make your own set of rules.  i don't always understand the rules in the first place, or how one small set of people can govern what is best for the "greater good" of all people.  some rules just don't apply to me, and so i ignore them.  maybe that makes me some kind of a rebel.  or maybe i'm just like my puppies.  maybe rebellion is just a part of nature, after all.