modom (palindrome guy) wrote:

> D's away at a summer institute at Ohio State. Has been for almost a
> week. There's nobody to talk to around here till she gets back next
> week. Jeeze, I've been married a long time and it's starting to show.
>
> The dogs are following me around like I'm the canine messiah. I guess
> it's because I'm marginally smarter than they are and I feed them. If
> they had opposable thumbs, it would be a different story. <snip>

Nah. Maybe if they had opposable thumbs AND access to a high limit
MasterCard, maybe.

I talk to my dogs all the time. The other day I was out back and Zane,
my male BC, brought me the last of the basketballs that serve as his
sheep surrogates. It was punctured, but that's nothing new, and it was
totally flat. I took it from him, pulling and prodding at it to see if
I could get it to inhale enough air to resume a roughly spherical
configuration. No joy. It remained stubbornly fortune cookie-shaped.

"Aw. Poor Zane", I commiserated. "And poor Zane's ball. Zanie killed
it. It's dead. Do you need a new ball? I'm going to go to the store.
Should I bring you a new ball? Yes? Okay, I promise, I'll bring you
a new ball."

How much did he understand? I don't know. He certainly knows what a
ball is, and each repetition of the the B word brought a head tilt. The
last sentence got a head tilt and a full body spin.

I started to take the expired basketball to the dumpster but thought
better of it. Even though it wouldn't roll he still liked to carry it
around.

My daughter and I drove up to Walmart for some potting soil and a couple
of more pots for her container garden. Fresh tomatoes and pepper for
salsa, yum. We checked out through the garden center and as I was
paying I realized I'd forgotten the ball. I waffled. He wouldn't know
I'd promised, and even if he did he'd forgive me. But I'd know.

So I handed our purchases to DD to take to the van and went back into
the store to the sporting goods section. Found a nice, fairly smooth
basketball for $17.00, went back to the garden center where a woman with
a completely full cart nipped in front of me and proceeded to check out
not only her 2 flats of petunias but about $150 worth of greeting cards,
shampoo, microwave popcorn, etc.

Now, the counter at the garden center isn't set up for that. So she was
taking things out of the cart and the poor checkout clerk was trying to
scan them and bag them as fast as she could as the line began to stack
up behind her. The woman shot me a nasty glare when I pointed out the
three cans of spray paint that had somehow gotten hidden behind her
plants when she replaced them in the cart.

And then she proceeded to pay for her purchase with gift cards. 15 $10
gift cards.

Meanwhile, my daughter called. She'd taken it on herself to drive the
van over and pick up the bags of soil, commenting offhandedly about the
wimpy brakes. She's not allowed to drive my van for that very reason.
That, and the fact that it has the handling characteristics of a
side-by-side refrigerator. She assured me that she hadn't actually hit
anything

Would Zane even remember the conversation about the ball? What if I
just stuffed it up this miserable skank's butt instead?

But I'd promised.

So I finally paid for my ball, found my undented van and drove home.
When we got there Zane was standing in the side yard looking through the
fence at us. Unusual. Normally the dogs don't bother coming around to
that side of the house when it's one of the family vehicles pulling up.
The gravel hurts their feet.

But there he was, waiting. When I stepped out and held up the sacred
orb he began yodeling joyously and spinning in circles. I stepped
through the gate, crossed the gravel pad and tossed the ball out into
the grass. He rocketed after it, dribbling it ahead of him, guiding it
with snout, shoulders and paws. I sat on the patio for a good half
hour, watching him herding his new ball. He'd break off every few
minutes to run up and throw himself into his cooling tank for a dip and
a drink, panting and grinning at me and splattering me with his sodden tail.

Did he know? Yes. No. Maybe. It was worth it, though, even with all
the extra hassle. How often can you bring that kind of joy to anybody?