As we hiked through the woods around Fraser this evening, a slice of orange moon smiled down upon Ozzie and me. 

His tail wagged, happy to be outdoors with his scientifically-challenged owner.

Check out our lunar planet, I said. He was busy gnawing a deer antler we stumbled upon.

“That’s no planet,” Ozzie howled. “That’s the moon, a harvest moon.”

That’s what I meant to say, I said. Resembles a slice of pumpkin pie up there, don’t you think? By the way, did you know Americans live 10 years longer than anybody else because we eat so much pumpkin pie?

“Horsefeathers,” Ozzie said.

If you don’t believe me, google it, I said. Here’s another tidbit you may be unaware of. Bob Woodward started our Williams Fork wildfire. 

A tine of antler fell from his open jaws.

“Cops haven’t said who’s responsible,” Ozzie said. “Where do you get your so-called facts?”

I told him to google it if he didn’t believe me. On second thought, I said, trust me.

“You’re saying Bob Woodward, the same guy whose newspaper stories about the Watergate burglary brought down President Nixon, is an arsonist?” Ozzie said.

The canine continued, “He wrote a bestseller about Trump and Covid. And he started the Williams-Fork too?”

I reminded him of what Babe Ruth, the famous philosopher, once said.  “Truth is stranger than lies.” 

“Babe Ruth played baseball,” Ozzie said. “He was no Aristotle.”

Ever since grade school, I explained, we’ve all been taught the moon is made of green cheese. We never questioned this fact because we trusted whichever expert told us. 

Ozzie coughed on an antler chunk. 

I told him about a research team at Ohio State University. I said they discovered the moon is not made of green cheese after all. They proved the moon is made of pumpkin pie filling.

When Ozzie asked about the team’s credentials, I informed him that when they’re not in the lab conducting experiments on cheese, they’re on the gridiron playing Big 10 football.

“You need to have your head examined,” Ozzie said. “To see if it’s empty.”

Ignoring his snide remark, I said researchers proved the moon’s nothing but a big ball of pumpkin pie filling. Ozzie decided to relieve himself in the woods.

See those craters up there? I said. He was still busy. 

Don’t they remind you of the pockmarked surface of a pumpkin pie? 

“I prefer apple,” he said.

If the moon is actually a giant pumpkin pie in the sky, I continued, you probably wonder why NASA astronaut Ned Armstrong didn’t get pumpkin pie filling all over his boots when Apollo landed on the moon back in 1905.

“You mean Neil Armstrong,” he growled. “And the year was 1969.”

Whatever, I said. The answer is as simple as Einstein’s theory of electricity. Apollo never landed on the moon. Armstrong made the whole thing up in order to get attention. He bribed NASA’s low-energy rocket scientists to fake the Apollo landing. Take my word for it.

Ozzie barked, “You’re crazy as a blue-nosed gopher.”

Here’s more breaking news, I said. Starbucks sells pumpkin spiced lattes. 

“You call that news?” Ozzie said. “Pass me the rest of that antler.”

Let me finish, I said. Inside that latte you’re drinking…

He interrupted, “Dogs don’t drink lattes.” 

… are enough opioids to keep you high for hours, I said.

“You’re telling me the pumpkin spiced lattes are addictive, like heroin?”

Ozzie’s teeth grabbed the antler out of my hand.

“Next you’re going to tell me these opioids are extracted from the small intestine of farm-raised wooly mammoths,” he howled.

You saw the story too? I said. 

“Fox News,” Ozzie said. 

The good news is that Ohio State University researchers are developing an antidote for the pumpkin spiced latte, I said. So we can all relax. 

Ozzie watched an owl dive for a jackrabbit, which swiftly disappeared down a rabbit hole.

We’ll all go cold turkey before Thanksgiving, I said. If that sounds farfetched, trust me.

Ozzie wagged his tail.

“How about fetching me another antler.”