Writer reports nightmare: One of the dogs ate the Picks story

With family and friends waiting all week for the Week 10 story of the 2008 Sunday Football Picks, the writer announced late Thursday that he had completed a sensational story on Monday, but left it out and allowed it to get eaten by one of the family dogs. He appeared visibly shaken by this writing tragedy, saying he struggled for days in an attempt to rewrite the article from scratch, but to no avail. Whether anyone is buying the writer's questionable claim is not known at this hour.

Defending Picks champion Alicia was the shining star on Sunday by achieving a season-best 11-1 record. Her brilliance pulled her to within two games of first place, which is shared by Mark, Nicki and QT at 85-46. Ali was the first to insist that the "dog ate my story" excuse smelled like a pile of poop, and she does have a pretty good sniffer on her.

"I accidentally left my homework out on Monday, so wouldn't the dogs have eaten that if they were going to eat some paper?" Ali asked. "I think my Dad just had massive writer's block that he's too embarrassed to admit. It's got to be tough coming up with some kind of entertaining Picks story every week."

The writer claims he left the story next to a bowl of buttered popcorn on the dining room table at Picks Central headquarters, and when he returned, everything was gone. Molly and Jasmine -- the family's Yorkshire Terriers -- were suspiciously circling the table, he said.

"That's a bunch of crap," said QT, who's mainly in charge of the two small dogs. "Molly and Jazzy wouldn't even lick a piece of paper unless it was first dunked in Hershey's syrup."

The alleged Picks story was one of the best ever, the writer said, so it's really too bad that it went to the dogs. He promised to be more careful in the future with where he leaves important documents.

"The Picks story is always written on the computer, not on a scrap of paper like it's the 19th century," Nicki said in dispute. "I saw that he was in last place this week with a 7-5 record. That probably hurt his enthusiasm for the story. It certainly would hurt mine if I was that bad."

The significantly late Picks story comes just two weeks after the fastest-posted article in Picks history. That recent accomplishment -- 20 minutes after the last game ended, compared to 5,800 elapsed minutes this week -- might be the only thing keeping the writer from being fired. Applications are being accepted just in case.