"I can't?"

"Dogs can't eat human food, I'll go down to Ralphs and get him something," Ted volunteered. "I have a special recipe I do for dogs."

"Oh, really? I would like to hear that recipe."

"I do half dry food... and half Alpo," he said, waving his hands around like one of the guys on the tarmac with the orange sticks when your plane lands. I looked at him, walked into my bedroom, and shut the door. Then I opened it, let Chunk (the dog) in, and shut it again. I had no idea where or how to start explaining to Chunk what we were dealing with. How do you explain to a child that his father will try to feed him Alpo? I didn't even know Alpo was still in business, and I certainly didn't know Ted was on their board of directors.

As if this weren't bad enough, the next morning Ted schooled me in dog training. I was in the shower, and Chunk was standing outside, chivalrously looking away while I put my body through a rinse cycle. Ted walked in, said good morning to the dog, then put his hand above Chunk's head and pushed it through the air. He instructed Chunk to "Sit!"-which Chunk did on command. "Chelsea, this is how you to tell a dog to sit," he announced.

I hadn't even finished lathering my shampoo into my hair when I kicked open the shower door. "Oh, really, Dog Whisperer? Is that how you do it?"

"You know what, Chelsea? How am I I supposed to know if supposed to know if you you know dog tricks?" he said, throwing up his hands in hopelessness. know dog tricks?" he said, throwing up his hands in hopelessness.

"Are you being serious right now, Ted? I really must know."

"Chelsea, you don't even like dogs."

"Telling a dog how to sit is not only not not a trick, it's probably the single most universal thing in the world, aside from army salutes and brownies." I wished my new dog didn't have to be subjected to this kind of humiliation, but this was his life now, and he needed to know what we were up against. We would be in this together, and I felt relieved to have an ally. Someone who understood me, loved me, and didn't know how to disagree with me. a trick, it's probably the single most universal thing in the world, aside from army salutes and brownies." I wished my new dog didn't have to be subjected to this kind of humiliation, but this was his life now, and he needed to know what we were up against. We would be in this together, and I felt relieved to have an ally. Someone who understood me, loved me, and didn't know how to disagree with me.

When I told my sister Sidney about the new addition to my family, she said, "This sounds a little overwhelming for someone with your limited skill set, Chelsea. You've already killed three fish. Have you thought about putting Ted down?"

"I told you Ted said those fish were starter fish who were sacrificing their lives to stabilize our aquarium and then we'd get pretty fish. Why do you keep bringing that up?"

After word spread that I'd gotten a dog, I received some of the most annoying e-mails I've ever encountered. Friends wanting to know if I wanted to arrange doggy play dates, lists of dog parks in my area, advice on what food to feed him, how to socialize him-essentially a collection of people I decided to end friendships with. The only doggy activity I was prepared to do was doggy style, and I'd be lying if I said that hadn't lost its appeal sometime around my sweet sixteen. I always thought people were annoying with their baby advice, but this seemed like it might be worse. I had spent my entire life with one dog or another, and aside from being emotionally unstable, each family dog we had seemed like a pretty cut-and-dried case. They started out as puppies, grew up, and then died, in no specific order.

The one person I allow to take Chunk for overnight visits is my friend Michael. He is a gay man with his own dog and is obsessed with Chunk and insists on calling him "Chunkity Chunk." He has Chunk every Sat.u.r.day for an overnight slumber party and then reports back to me on Sunday how he and Chunk talked for hours and that dogs are really the only people who understand him.

"I have a special language that dogs understand," he'll tell me in his deep Texan tw.a.n.g. "He'll lie on top of me, and I'll give him a forty-five-minute deep-tissue ma.s.sage, and he loooooooves it. Then I'll turn on your TV show and watch it, and Chunk will sit down right in front of the TV and stare straight at you. He loves the show! He is such a special dog, Chelsea. I just have such a love for him. He is so funny!"

It's pointless trying to tell Michael that dogs aren't funny, simply because they are dogs and they are incapable of telling jokes or getting them, for that matter. It's pointless to tell Michael much of anything because he is in a world all his own and he has the attention span of an espresso maker. He also has a pretty unhealthy, though seemingly innocuous, relationship with his own dog.

I wanted to make sure there was nothing going on with Chunk that I would be alarmed by. "You're not putting your finger in my dog's a.s.shole, right?" I asked him one afternoon on the phone. I didn't really believe that he was, but I had just finished Mia Farrow's autobiography and I didn't want to be one of those mothers who let their child hang out with a Woody Allen type who was doing inappropriate things to their flesh and blood.

"Chelsea Handler, I would never, ever put my finger in any dog's a.s.shole. I wouldn't hurt any animal on this earth for all the money in the world. I love dogs, and I love Chunk, and I think you know that I would never hurt a fly."

"That's not the point, Michael. You can never fit your finger into a fly's a.s.shole."

"Chelsea, please don't do this."

"Okay, sorry. As a mother, I just had to ask."

"I understand," Michael told me. "I do think Chunk is gay, though. And also I want to be put in your will just in case you die, so that I get Chunk. Ted won't care, right?"

Michael still takes Chunk every weekend, and I know he doesn't stick anything in his a.s.shole, because Chunk gets so excited every time Michael shows up to take him. And I know Chunk is straight because he tested negative for the gay virus.

Chunk still follows me around all the time, but he has chilled out a little bit, mostly because he saw the toll it was taking on me when Ted did the same thing. Once in a while, Ted and I will forget to put food away and then come home to find the remains of a wheel of Brie spread across our duvet and Chunk pa.s.sed out next to the bed. It happens only every so often, but when it does, our entire condo smells like a foot and I'm convinced that my mother has reincarnated herself as Chunk. Spreading Brie over my bedspread and coming back to life as a dog is totally something my mother would do.

To this day Chunk has still not taken a dump in front of me, and I respect him for it. I always said I would never get a dog until they came out with one that either doesn't take a dump or knows how to bartend. The fact that Chunk has no problem taking a dump in front of Ted makes me respect him more. I hope that one day soon the two of them can take dumps together.

My dog, Chunk

Chapter Eleven

Deep Thoughts by Chelsea Handy

My tendency to make up stories and lie compulsively for the sake of my own amus.e.m.e.nt takes up a good portion of my day and provides me with a peace of mind not easily attainable in this economic climate. The following is a catalog of lies that have been left open-ended, and in all these instances, the victims have not been made aware that they have fallen prey to complete and utter nonsense. "Dumba.s.sness" is the word I would use to describe the condition they suffer from.

SILLY SULLY

My friend Stephanie believes that Sully, the pilot who landed the US Airways flight in the Hudson River, is currently Ted's and my personal pilot. We had arrived in Turks and Caicos a day after Stephanie, on a regular plane like everyone else. That night at dinner, Ted mentioned the turbulence on the flight and casually mentioned that had Sully been our pilot, he would have been a lot less stressed. Stephanie was sitting a couple of seats down and asked me if she heard correctly.

"Did I hear you say Sully, the guy who landed that plane, was your pilot?"

"He's an American hero is what he is," I told her.

"I know he is!" she exclaimed. "How did that happen?"

"Ted called and offered him a bunch of money," I told her. "Apparently he's a huge fan of the E! network and Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Keeping Up with the Kardashians. He now provides this service for a lot of people. We're third on his list. So if no one else is flying that day, we get him. He's a pretty interesting guy." He now provides this service for a lot of people. We're third on his list. So if no one else is flying that day, we get him. He's a pretty interesting guy."

"That is so cool!" Stephanie exclaimed, while everyone else at the table was rolling their eyes except for my brother Ray, who has always been a little slow on the uptake.

Ted got up from his seat and moved down to the other side of the table while I explained to Stephanie that Ted isn't the best flier and Sully has basically become a member of our family. "He and Ted go golfing together all the time. He was supposed to come on this trip, but Beyonce needed him tomorrow. He says she uses the ThighMaster the entire flight. She just sits there working out her thighs for hours straight while Jay-Z raps."

"Oh, my G.o.d!" Steph cried. "She is such a mess!"

My friend Paul was sitting across from me, shaking his head and pretending to be texting on his BlackBerry. Eva piped up. "Sometimes he lets Ted sit in the c.o.c.kpit."

"That is so cool. Ted must feel like one of the Beatles! Who else is on the list before you?" Steph asked.

"That's so funny you just said the Beatles because it's actually Beyonce and Sir Paul McCartney."

Stephanie stopped chewing her food. "Shut up."

I never told Stephanie I was kidding, and sometime later, when I was flying out for a stand-up show in Atlantic City, she texted me on the way to the airport and asked if I was flying with Sully.

"Yup. He just texted me that he got Marley & Me Marley & Me for the flight. How cute is that?" for the flight. How cute is that?"

"I want to meet him! Also, see if you can get any more dish on Beyonce and Jay-Z," she wrote.

"I already did. Apparently, Beyonce has to load up an entire separate plane for her wardrobe because Sully hates the House of Dereon and thinks Beyonce's mother is trying to exploit her own daughter with her tacky designs. Sully refuses to do it. He's way in on the drama."

"Who knew a pilot from Pennsylvania would have such a good eye?" she responded. "Please keep me in the loop. Invite him to your birthday this year. He sounds like one of us."

"I'm on it," I typed back. As for my brother, I'm unclear if he even knew who we were talking about, since there's a chance he entirely missed the news story about Sully landing on the Hudson in the first place.

THE CHALLENGER CHALLENGER.

A year ago I told one of the writers on my staff, Heather McDonald, that I was being offered the main role in a movie about Christa McCauliffe and the Challenger Challenger s.p.a.ce shuttle blowing up. Heather is by far the most gullible person on my staff, and all the writers on the show are constantly making up ridiculous stories to tell her just for the sake of our own amus.e.m.e.nt. She's not stupid; she just seems to love anything involving free items, money, or drama. s.p.a.ce shuttle blowing up. Heather is by far the most gullible person on my staff, and all the writers on the show are constantly making up ridiculous stories to tell her just for the sake of our own amus.e.m.e.nt. She's not stupid; she just seems to love anything involving free items, money, or drama.

"The weird part," I told her, "is that it's a comedy, and they're allowing me to hire my own writer to write my part." This was enough to pique Heather's interest and motivate her to put some ideas together and get a head start before some of the other writers came up with anything substantial. "Meryl Streep is playing Christa McCauliffe," I added, "but she's dead and only comes down from heaven to talk to me in the movie."

My partner Tom walked into my office halfway through this debacle and took no time to jump in and add his own spin. "Chelsea plays her daughter, who grew up never knowing her mother and is now married and in the process of becoming an astronaut. But every time she gets into a s.p.a.ce shuttle, she has terrible flashbacks about the day."

"Are you going to do it?" Heather asked me.

"Yes, obviously, I want to! Meryl Streep? I can't pa.s.s that up. And they have an offer out to Hank Azaria to play my husband."

"That's so weird." She sat on the sofa in my office looking at me. "How can they make this a comedy?"

"That's where you come in, Heather," Tom told her. "We're going to have all the writers submit ideas for the story line, since the studio is willing to hire a personal writer from Chelsea's staff to outline the story. They definitely want it to have a comedic twist."

"It's so weird that they would make it a comedy," she said. "That was a really horrible event."

"It is weird," I agreed. "It's downright creepy, but who am I to take a moral stand on someone else's vision? That's why I need help. I'm going to ask all the writers to come up with an outline for the movie and some really funny scenes. Apparently there's going to be a lot of improv. Meryl loves improv, I guess, and never really gets to do it."

"She does?"

"Yes," Tom a.s.sured her. "I've seen her talk about it on Inside the Actors Studio. Inside the Actors Studio. She feels robbed." She feels robbed."

"Well, it is a good subject for a movie. I mean, everyone remembers where they were that day. I remember when they announced that the Challenger Challenger blew up. I was in fifth or sixth grade, I think," she said. blew up. I was in fifth or sixth grade, I think," she said.

"Yeah, I remember, too. Although I was younger, of course."

"So basically," Tom interjected, "you need to write a few pages of dialogue and/or plotlines and submit them along with the other writers, and then we're going to decide who will make the seventy-five-thousand-dollar writing fee."

"Seventy-five thousand dollars?" Heather asked.

"At least," he told her. "Could even turn out to be more. How soon can you get something to us?"

"I'll start working on it this weekend," she said. "Is there any other information you can give me?"

"Well," I told her, "my husband in the movie hates for me to be in s.p.a.ce. He just wants me to do something where I spend the majority of time on earth. There's actually a scene where I s.h.i.t my pants in a s.p.a.ce-shuttle simulator." I looked at Tom, who had turned around and was going through my belts. "I already told her they have an offer out to Hank Azaria to play my husband."

"No," Tom corrected me. "Actually, the last I heard was that he pa.s.sed and they were going in a different direction. They were going to make an offer to Justin Timberlake, who they say is interested."

"Shut up!" Heather wailed.

"No way!" I exclaimed, jumping out of my seat. "I have have to do it now." to do it now."

"You have to do it. Let me start brainstorming." She got up to go to her office. "One last thing-do they have a t.i.tle?" she asked me.

"Yes," Tom told her. "It's called The Sky Is Crying The Sky Is Crying."

TURKS AND CAICOS.

At some point during our vacation, Sylvan asked me if my friend Paul was gay, which he is. Instead of giving him a straightforward answer, I saw an opportunity and told Sylvan that not only was Paul gay but that he was actually still a woman who was currently going through gender-rea.s.signment surgery. He was raised as a boy until he was eighteen and started dating a girl. He found out that boy parts are different from girl parts and that he had the exact same parts as his girlfriend. Gender rea.s.signment is a pretty laborious process, so each month he got estrogen injections, and his body had been slowly transforming his girl parts into male parts. After this trip he was getting his p.e.n.i.s.

"Holy s.h.i.t, Chels." Sylvan was horrified. "What happened to the girl?"

"She was freaked out," I told him. "She enlisted in the military immediately after he told her and has since been deployed to Iraq."

"So he has girl parts right now?"

"Yes. He has a c.l.i.toris, but after this vacation is when they inject him with the hormones to enlarge the c.l.i.toris into a full-blown p.e.n.i.s."

"Why didn't he want to stay being a girl?"

"Because he spent his whole life thinking he was a boy and a.s.sociates more with boys. If you look closely at his t.i.ts, you can see that they used to be bigger."

"Oh, my G.o.d, Chels." Sylvan was rubbing his head. "I've never heard of anything like this."

"Yup. What they do is give you pills to basically turn your c.l.i.toris into a p.e.n.i.s. Pretty f.u.c.ked up, huh?"

Sylvan and I were on a boat watching Paul swim around with a snorkel, looking for fish. "He looks so much like a guy," Sylvan said.

"I know. It's taken a lot of work for him to get there. He used to have hair longer than mine. It's amazing to actually watch the transformation. His body has been through so many stages. At least now people think he's a guy. guy. There was a time not long ago when you couldn't tell what he was." There was a time not long ago when you couldn't tell what he was."

Sylvan was flabbergasted, and I was having the time of my life. He was still rubbing his head as if he were in pain and asked me, "So is he technically a boy or a girl right now?"

"Right now he's both. His parents, wanting a boy, decided that even though he had a coslopus, they would raise him as a boy. After he found out he was a girl, he got into real estate, because he knew that was the quickest way to make a buck, and he's been saving money ever since to make 'the change.' "

"But, Chels, he looks and talks and walks like a guy," Sylvan told me.

"I know, Sylvan. Medicine is amazing," I declared. "A-mazing, His real name is Bernice, but his parents just called him Bernie, and then when he found out that they were lying to him his whole life, he changed his name to Paul."

Sylvan couldn't stop asking questions. Luckily, I had an answer for each one. When Paul came in after snorkeling, Sylvan got up and handed him a towel. He also started pulling out Paul's seat each night at dinner, which clearly confused Paul every time, but was enjoyable for me to watch.

"I don't get it, Chels," Sylvan asked. "Does he like girls or boys?"

"Boys."

"But if he likes boys, wouldn't it have been easier to just stay a girl, instead of becoming a man and then becoming gay?"

"That's a pretty good f.u.c.king question, Sylvan," I told him. "One that I ask myself every day when I look at Paul's a.s.s. It's hard to understand the transgender community and what their thoughts are. Why they want to cross two hurdles instead of one, but I don't ask questions, Sylvan. I don't judge. I'm not the Lord."