I was fidgeting with this black twist tie the other day — long conference call — and sort of molded it around the end of my thumb.

A couple of little tugs later it turned into the perfect cartoon Labrador retriever.

In one of the multiverses, this is a Eureka Moment, and that silly but lovable dog with his witty thought bubbles ends up syndicated in more than 1,000 newspapers (some of which are brought back from the financial brink just because of the comic’s popularity) and gets his own show and records a Christmas album featuring Weird Al, Beyoncé, and the Vienna Boys Choir.