It has long been thought that animals sense even the most minuscule of aberrant behavior in humans and respond in kind, but Rex has taken things to an entirely new level by seeking out the most dysfunctional members of the Barr family and applying the clamp-down. While Rex seems indifferent to unrelated neighbor families, he becomes extremely agitated around particular parts of his own extended clan that attempt to manipulate, distort or otherwise abuse fellow members.

Family patriarch, Bill Barr, doesn’t seem to know whether to be appalled or grateful for his dog’s behavior, but he ‘gets’ where the dog’s coming from: “We’re all thinking the same thing in these family encounters but Rex seems to be the only one to address the issue head on.”

A week earlier, Bill’s sister, Maria, was visiting with her husband, Mel, when the subject of Bill’s birthday came up and Bill explained how he and his wife had come up with a nice little group to celebrate his milestone 60th. Rather than a simple congratulations and RSVP, Maria began to complain that it would be insulting to leave out numerous Barr extended family (“What would they think?!?). As much as Bill complained that he didn’t want them there because, frankly, he didn’t really like most of them and it was his birthday, Maria continued to force the issue and, in the process, wrote out her own guest list to his party and promised to start calling them the next day.

This is where, Rex, sitting quietly in the corner, got to his feet, walked over to Maria, applied a vice grip to her pant leg and began to drag the hysterical woman towards the front door. Maria’s husband, Mel, was yelling at the dog to stop but was a little hesitant to intercede being just a bit fearful of Rex. Despite the tepid protests of the Barrs, Rex eventually forced the door open, dragged Maria to the foot of her car door and calmly returned to his guard post on the front porch.

“There are plenty of relatives that just don’t come around any more,” explains Barr, “but, oddly enough, they seem to be the ones with some stupid, self-promoting agenda that makes everyone uncomfortable. I don’t think Rex appreciates that and makes his feelings clear…I wish I was more like Rex.”

A voracious reader of Psychology Today and subsequent dispenser of advice from here to eternity, Massagua has found her own calling as the ‘knower’ of everyone else’s problems and frequently explains their deficits to them. Unfortunately, Massagua leaves out the critical reference point that is her own station in life. For years, family members have listened politely as Massagua has gone on about her specialty, brain chemistry, and it’s effects on their ability to process life’s challenges.

Says sister, Donnie Martin: “I’ve never had a conversation on the phone with her that didn’t come around to brain chemistry or the drugs that alter brain chemistry. She talks to me like a college lecturer on the subject, but we all know that we’re not the only ones who need the meds.”

According to several relations interviewed for this story, Massagua’s ‘expertise’ does not extend to herself and her ‘advice’ to others has worn thin. Friends and family think she’s finally gone off the deep end, leaving her theories alone on the precipice where theories perch just before leaping to their demise. Massagua thinks otherwise:

“Who are you and why are you interviewing me?”, replied a startled, Massagua, when approached for this article. “I’m fine, it’s them who need the help.”

Donnie Martin’s husband, Phil, tells a story of once making the mistake of picking up the phone when Massagua called and as she began to explain the dynamics of Abilify, her brother-in-law put the phone down, went to the kitchen and made a sandwich, checked the mail, took a shower, came back to the phone to say ‘right’, went to the grocery store, came back and “she was still talking.”

After a family meeting, members decided to send a swat team of mental professionals to her home in Waukeegan in a last ditch intervention. The plan, however, backfired when Massagua began to explain the physics of depression in lab rats, thereby causing seizures in 3 of the 4 physicians assigned to the case.

“I’m not trying to screw up”, admitted Bynes, “but I always end up finding a way to repulse our friends.”

A year ago, invited to a Christmas potluck, Bynes and his wife, Flora, created a beautiful caprese salad with freshly grown basil leaves, expensive oils and delicious balsamic vinegar. In fact, the dish was so good that Bynes sat down in front of it at the potluck table and ate the majority of the dish while friends scrambled to grab any scraps that Bynes might have missed.

“Nobody said anything directly but the vibes, man, the vibes.”

The potluck included a Christmas ornament exchange but Bynes and his wife had failed to read that fact clearly on the invitation they received. When the host called everyone into the living room for the event, Bynes, realizing that this wasn’t a particularly good follow-up to eating all of his own potluck dish, quickly fashioned a paper ornament out of scraps borrowed from the wrapping paper of other gift givers, attaching a hook and casually pretending he’d just lifted it from the Christmas tree.

Some were amused and some were not and while Bynes was lauded for his creativity, it was just as clear that the subtext of their attitude and cajoling spelled out an end to any future invitations. In other words, “you’re mildly amusing, but you’re going to have to do it somewhere else.”

Just to make sure that he’d done enough damage on the way out the door, Bynes absentmindedly picked up the wrong jacket and left his own at the party…pockets stuffed with condoms, discovered by the host’s children on Christmas morning.

Bynes is now in a 12-step recovery program for perpetually inept party-goers and has a new social gathering sponsor who apologizes for Bynes in advance.

Back in August, Jansen says he realized that family responsibilities were going to be a season long hindrance to his football Sundays and he began to formulate an “end around” that would guarantee him a seat in front of the television for nearly the entire NFL season.

During the final pre-season game before opening day, Jansen, within his family’s earshot but out of sight, slapped on a bike helmet that he’d hidden with the kitchen pots and pans and hurled himself down the basement steps, screaming all the way down.

Once at the bottom of the steps, extremely sore, Jansen tossed the helmet under the stairs and lay there moaning until his wife and kids came running. Frantically, his wife, Gloria, called 911 while Jansen lay there mumbling “Buster Memorial…Buster Memorial…”

Initially confused as to why he kept repeating ‘Buster Memorial’, they finally figured out that he wanted to be treated at Buster Memorial Hospital, so they passed the request on to the ambulance driver and he was taken directly to Buster Memorial’s emergency room.

While doctors found numerous bruises from his fall, an MRI and visual inspection found no damage to the head. Baffled doctors still assumed that he must have hurt his head in the fall because he was semi-conscious, couldn’t focus on anyone and kept repeating “Buster Memorial”.

“I had gone all around before the injury”, admits Jansen, “and checked out which hospital had the best TVs and settled on Buster Memorial. They had fairly good size flat screens on the wall!”

As the week progressed and got closer to NFL opening day, Jansen began changing his “Buster Memorial” mantra to “football” and doctors, thinking that he was making a breakthrough, instructed nurses to make sure the television in his room was tuned to whatever game was on.

What finally tripped up the plan in week 4 was an open bag of pork rinds discovered by hospital aides, stuffed in a pillow case. When approached with the snack, Jansen, hungry for pork rinds, suddenly lurched out of his fake coma, grabbed the bag and admitted to the entire scam.

Psychologists have subsequently determined that Jansen suffers from acute impulsiveness worsened by an inability to differentiate between a good idea and a bad one.

And all of this because Stasiuk, 49, has apparently bonded with the social networking program, Facebook, to such a degree that she no longer relates to anyone not on her ‘friend list’. For a week and a half her husband, Frank, was trying to ask her if she had paid the electric bill, but it wasn’t until he befriended her on Facebook from his workplace that he was even able to find out what they were having for dinner.

Mrs. Stasiuk, whose ‘friends list’ tallies over 4,000, has answered a few questions from reporters but only after ‘friending’ them and then only in the private mail section of the program where she’s explained herself as “only really witty and charming when I’m on Facebook. I’m really popular now and I just can’t go back to listening to my whiny voice and incoherent rambling.”

Apparently, friends agree.  Best friend (BFBF), Melanie Davis, says that “Diane was kind of a dud to hang out with but she’s very entertaining on Facebook. I don’t know what it is but I’d prefer to keep our relationship purely digital.”

The always delicate balance between teenager and parent has also been strained. Stasiuk’s two children, Melissa, 16, and Connie, 15, have shocked their father by urging him to completely sever their Internet connection, admitting that “it’s no fun anyway. She’s friends with all of our friends, which totally sucks.”

Greenry claims that this cost cutting measure will stabilize overhead in an unstable economy and, essentially, keep all profits re-circulating throughout the family. Greenry got the idea one night while watching an old episode of The Waltons where John Boy, Mary Ellen and the rest of the kids helped to keep their lumber mill going during the depression years.

“Everybody’s got a job,” says Greenry, “Grandpa runs plant safety, Uncle Ed got human resources and even my 3 year-old empties the trash in my office.”

The changeover to all family employees has run into a few snags as Aunt Edna and Aunt Romy got into an argument over who would become cafeteria manager, which ultimately determined whose pasta sauce would be used on the menu. Romy brought the quarrel to human resources where her husband Ed couldn’t very well rule against his own wife, causing the spat to escalate to an all-out war between the two families. The situation got worse when Romy called security to have Edna escorted off of cafeteria premises, forgetting that security is run by Edna’s son, Carl, who never liked Romy to begin with.

While Mr. Greenry is in the process of rethinking the practical aspects of his reorganization idea, Aunt Romy has chained herself to the refrigerator, refusing to leave until she receives a promotion.

According to authorities, the owner of the residence, Robert Smith, had apparently left the premises sometime in 1998 and left the boy locked in a box with little ventilation and no provisions. The red-haired, freckle-faced boy, identified only as Doody (pending contact with the family tree), spent hours telling police detectives of the years of being forced to perform for Smith and a clown called Clarabell.

Doody told police that “at first it was just for fun but, before I knew it, money had exchanged hands and I was forced to sign a contract.” The boy claimed to have been filmed and photographed repeatedly from 1947 until 1960, “when it all suddenly stopped”.

“After that,” said Doody, “I was ignored and stuffed in this rotten attic, cast off like an old pair of wheel chocks…it was very lonely…he just cut the strings and pretended I didn’t exist.”

Neighbors and local watchdog groups have complained to police about the lack of a thorough search over the decades, even though the knocking and occasional muffled singing could clearly be heard outside the house.

Although Smith could not be located, police managed to track down and arrest Clarabell later the same day. However, the clown refused to talk, only honking a small horn in response to interrogators.

While Doody appeared to be in amazingly good condition and always smiling, detectives did note an oddly excited reaction when one of the officers asked another, “What time is it?”

Harvard study coordinator, Dr. Loretta Feinstein, acknowledges that results are in the preliminary stages and further behavior modification studies are needed but several test subjects located in 5 states have yielded better than expected return.

Test subject 14, residing in an undisclosed city in Michigan, has begun to respond positively to constant reminders and threats of leaving by his spouse, and has now loaded and unloaded their dishwasher 3 consecutive times. In addition, the subject shocked researchers by suggesting the couple go for a ‘walk’ and then engaging his spouse in an exchange of ‘inner feelings’.

Researchers warn the wife of the test subject to temper her optimism since it is common for these minor successes to be followed by a complete relapse into open bags of Cheetos and Spongebob Squarepants cartoon marathons.

While the study has shown positive results, Dr. Feinstein constantly reminds female partners of the downside of these findings; most of the earliest test subjects receiving daily dosages of “activity suggestion” showed no signs of change for at least 25 years.

As a result, Dr. Feinstein, long past retirement age, believes there is little hope she will live long enough to complete the study.

Coach and team president, Tom Jeter, explained the move by saying: “If we’re going to prove that we’re a committed family organization, then we’ve got to start acting like it, so we’re folding the franchise so we can spend more time with our families through the football season.”

Jeter went on to point out the hours and hours of lost family time due to NFL broadcasts and, closer to home, their own semi-pro team, the Whale Boaters. Apparently, Jeter was able to convince the 40 players and coaches under contract to simply give up their jobs and hang around with their wives all day long.

While some sociologists find this unprecedented move intriguing, others, nearly all male sociologists, argue that the experiment is mind-numbingly stupid and why would anyone do that? Then the angry sociologists descended upon Jeter’s home with pitchforks and torches, driving him out of the county.

New coach, Cliff Stepford, holds tryouts on August 14th.

Mr. Frisky claims he was washing his car when the shih tzu came out of nowhere and locked its powerful jaws down on his pant cuff. Frisky, unable to get loose of the dog, began hopping around towards his picture window, trying to alert his wife to the attack.

“It was horrifying”, said Frisky. “He had a death grip on my cuff and these were brand new pants! The more I struggled, the more I could see that the seam would eventually give way.”

As it turns out, his wife was in the backyard and couldn’t hear the screaming as Frisky continued his desperate hopping. Eventually, neighbors began to gather, some of them taking pictures and video.

Meanwhile, the dog’s owner from two houses down, Stan Freeman, realized his shih tzu “Fluffer” was missing and ran out in search of the beloved pet only to find that Fluffer had an, until now, undiscovered bloodlust for khakis.

Freeman quickly separated the dog from Frisky’s trousers, apologized for the busted seam, gave Frisky $30 for the repair and walked off to his home, leaving a bewildered Frisky stunned and shaking.

Since the attack, Frisky’s wife says that although a tailor has made the necessary repairs, her husband still wakes up with night sweats, often dreaming of being chased by a pack of wild beagles. Frisky has also started seeing a therapist and is now unable to watch Project Runway or old reruns of Lassie.