In reality, pets are stolen children - puppies and kittens and other sawed-off little creatures that have been kidnapped from their rightful parents and brought up like human kids. And it almost works for most of us, except for a bizarre deviation of the little creatures. They have hair all over their bodies instead of in the customary locations of human beings. I don't know about your family, but only a small percentage of the children in our family have ever been overwhelmed by their own hair, and then only during the teenage years. Those real human children have long since fled the nest. So we have dismantled the swing set that was once a child magnet. Today, we live only with imaginary children/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: What do you think of Bill Hall's tongue-in-cheek contention that pets become substitute kids for empty nesters?