You probably think your life is pretty hard sometimes because you have to pay bills, and brush your teeth, and sometimes you get a zit on your butt that looks like it’s ready to pop, but then you try to pop it, and it just leaves a big bruise, and you have to explain to your lover that you haven’t been having kinky S&M sex with some new person, and they finally believe you, but then they want to try kinky S&M sex, and you find out you’re both really into it, only six months later they leave you for someone that’s really good at rope bondage, and you can’t find anyone else who is into that stuff, so you can’t get off anymore, but you know what? If your village has never been attacked by a horde of swamp dogs, maybe you should just shut up and count your blessings.

That’s what happened to these people I knew, and they said it really really sucked. I’m not exactly sure why anyone would live near a swamp in the first place, but I guess everyone gets one of those boats with the big fan on the back, and that’s pretty cool. What’s not cool though is swamp dogs. They are these magical dogs that live in the swamp (duh) eating alligators and generally terrifying the shit out of everyone. One of their best powers is convincing people to pet them, even though they’re giant and ferocious. They do this with a combination of telepathy and looking cute that’s really hard to resist. That’s why so many people who live near swamps only have one hand or are dead.

Anyway, what this one village did was get really sick of it, so they pooled all their money and hired a group of wizards to come clear the local swamp of all the swamp dogs once and for all. When the wizards got there, the first thing they thought was “Fuck this is going to be easy. Being a wizard is fun.” But they forgot that swamp dogs are telepathic. They heard the wizards thoughts, and they thought, “Fuck this is going to be easy. Being a swamp dog is fun.” The wizards didn’t hear them because none of them bothered using a telepathy spell because they thought, “Hey we’re only fighting dogs, and dogs are dumb as hell.” See, that’s the thing about wizards, they’re so cocky that they never really prepare before a battle unless they’re fighting other wizards. That’s why so many of them only have one hand or are dead.

So, as they were all sitting around drinking swamp wine and talking about how awesome they are, that’s when the swamp dogs attacked. They burst into the shack and starting tossing wizards and swamp-peasants around like rag dolls before anyone could even react. They ate, like, five people before everyone else was able to escape, and right as this one wizard ran out the door, a swamp dog grabbed onto his beard and slowly started gulping him into its mouth like a boa constrictor with a long hamster. It was scary as fuck but probably looked pretty cool if you weren’t emotionally involved or whatever.

The survivors all ran to the top of the biggest hill in the village (which wasn’t very big since it was a swamp) and basically waited to die. The remaining wizards tried firing off some spells, but since the dogs were telepathic, they knew just when to dodge. They started slowly coming up the hill, growling and looking as menacing as they could because now they had plenty of time, so why not have fun with it, ya know?

This one old woman threw the blanket she was wearing up over her head, so she didn’t have to see the horrible slobbering maw that was about to engulf her. Suddenly, the dog in front of her stopped moving and looked around totally confused. It was about to give up and bite someone else, but everyone around the old woman got the idea and starting hiding under shawls, and cloaks, and shit. You’d think the dogs would just use their telepathy to find everyone, but honestly they were just too freaked out by the whole thing. The wizards knew this was their one big chance, so they didn’t try to get fancy and cast some spell to send the dogs to a nice farm upstate or anything like that. They just cast good ol’-fashioned fireball, and it worked fine, thank you very much.

Look, I understand this was a pretty intense story, what with so many people and swamp dogs dying and everything, so if it makes you feel any better, I’ll tell you this: When the only lady who first pulled the blanket over head was walking home that night, she found a little swamp puppy shivering and cold under a tree. She knew its mom and dad had just been burned up, so she took it home and raised it in secret. Once it was old enough to develop its telepathy powers, she took it to Atlantic City and won a ton of money by pretending to be a blind woman with a seeing eye dog. Other than being a con artist, the dog was super sweet, and everyone was able to pet it without worrying about losing a hand. Turns out living in a swamp just makes you grumpy.