I'm pretty adamant in my refusal to wear T-shirts with slogans on them, especially the cutesy sports/macho slogans like "If you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch." I don't mean to seem overly combative, but the big dogs can't run with the medium-size dogs - it's why people race greyhounds and whippets, not Great Danes. But leaving that entirely aside, what does the phrase "if you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch" really mean? It implies, of course, that the wearer of the shirt is one of the big dogs in question, though exactly what that means is open to question. Does it mean he drools, rolls in dust and compulsively urinates on the houseplants? And why would I want to run with such a thing? Where are they running to? Why does there seem to be such a moral stigma associated with staying on the porch? One could argue "if you don't run with the big dogs, you stand less chance of being splattered by a delivery truck", but every time you do, the big dogs make disparaging remarks about your package.

Yes, yes, I know that they’re referring not to real dogs, but to attitudes or mindsets. But what’s so special about big dogs that makes them uniquely qualified to be used as tokens of attitudes and mindsets? (I have a friend who argues that men make a fetish of the “big dog attitude” because dogs can lick their own testicles, and the scary thing is that I can’t see any particular flaw in her logic.) I don’t think there’s a big dog alive that could last twenty seconds against a big Bengal tiger or a polar bear, but you don’t see T-shirts that read Crush sea-lion skulls with the big polar bears, or stay on the ice floe. Or, Bring down Cape buffalo with the big lions, or stay around the carcass. Or, Gore foolhardy Spaniards in tight pants with the big bulls, or stay in the pasture. Or Burn two million pounds of propellant in three and a half minutes with the big space boosters, or stay on the launch pad. I’m sure you get the point.

The other day I was minding my own business when someone assaulted my sensibilities with a shirt whose slogan was “If you can’t drive with the big dogs, stay on the range.” This self-professed bon mot makes no sense at all on first inspection, and it’s only when you realize that the shirt is referring to golf that the pictures comes into focus. It helpfully provided a picture to help one grasp the meaning of the slogan, in this case showing an enormous bipedal dog with the build of Superman hitting a golf ball so hard it had exploded. Again, I don’t mean to seem anal-retentive, but dogs aren’t bipedal, dogs aren’t really known for their skill at golf, and I don’t think making the ball explode really helps your score very much. “What did you score, Ed?” “Oh, I shot a 8,342 because the balls kept exploding on me. I curse the day I was given super-human strength.”

When human history finally comes to a close and some cool dispassionate alien intelligence gets around to writing a one-volume history of the human race, there’s going to be a chapter called “Golf -- Loud Pants and Clubs, What’s the Deal?” I don’t mind golf as a game, mind you. It gets you outdoors, it lets you walk around on grass, and I suppose as leisure pursuits go, it’s not as dangerous as skydiving or as socially isolating as trying to beat Super Mario Brothers on your old Nintendo. My concerns aren’t about golf the game, but golf hysteria. What would compell someone to wear a shirt that suggested that he was a big dog capable of making golf balls explode?

Nearly everyone where I work plays golf, which fine with me. I’ve played golf myself, and if people find it a pleasant hobby, more power to them. But there are a few of them at work who cross the threshold, who become obnoxious golf geeks who think that everyone’s impressed with the fact that they play golf. They gather in clumps to practice their swings, writhing and swinging and mumbling things like get up there and sit right down and that’s a beauty. In the afternoons, they start to vocalize. “You gonna go stroke?” “Thinking about it. Might go hit a few balls, then have a margarita at the Pointe.” “That sounds like a good thing.” I’m always tempted to say things like I'm going to go home and do some complicated processing with my liver while I reflect upon the fact that playing golf doesn't make me like you.

The fact is, guys, I don’t care if you’re going golfing or not, or what trendy watering hole you intend to infest after you’re done playing golf. Your practice swings don’t impress me, your twiddling with golf tees doesn’t impress me, and your sudden nonspecific announcements about the state of your clubs don’t impress me. If you were to suddenly burst into flame, or transform yourself into Josef Stalin, or grow antlers, then I might be impressed, but your golf antics really don’t do much for me. Maybe I’d be less jaded if golf balls really did explode – if every golf ball had a 1% chance of exploding. I figure this would produce about 250 golf-related casualties per day in Phoenix alone, and might perk my interest just a bit.

You like golf? By all means, enjoy it in good health. But don’t expect me to be impressed. There’s a commercial I see occasionally on TV for Anthem, where you get to hear close-up the sounds of guys golfing: Swoosh. Get up there. That’s pretty. That’s pretty. And meantime they list places where these sounds might possibly be originating, like A) the Masters, B) Some Fussy And Very Exclusive Golf Course That Wouldn’t Accept You As A Member On A Dare, or C) Anthem. They missed option D), a lesser hell populated by narcissistic materialists in loud pants. But hey, as long as they can run with the big dogs, it must be okay, right? Woof.

I don’t think I’m a big dog. I don’t think I’m a dog at all, actually. If I had to pick a zoological classification for myself, I think I’d have to settle for a lemur, one of those lemurs with the enormously elongated index fingers and eyes the size of Swanson chicken pot pies. Scratch green bugs out of the tree bark with the big lemurs, or stay on the lower branches.

Yes!