So late last night, or maybe early this morning, I'm in bed with my wife hankying her panky, when there's a large crash downstairs. Now we've been parents and pet owners long enough that we've had our canoodling interrupted by catastrophes major and minor, well, more often than not probably. Because of this we've got a sort of highly refined psychic meter. It's kind of like the Flight or Fight response, only it's Sex or Responsibility. This night the needle was a hair's width over in the Better-Check-It-Out Zone. So I get up to see what happened because it was my turn (we've also an uncanny sense of Whose-Turn-It-Is).
I stumbled down to the living room and find nothing amiss except for an amissing ottoman. I found the ottoman in the dining room, and this was all getting very familiar. In fact, there's a back story:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=6538575The final piece of the puzzle was the window. The venetian blinds were torn apart and the screen was missing. Also missing was the border collie. This border collie, btw, has been particularly excited the last few nights because a family of possums has been snacking on our fruit trees. Later, my wife would recollect that at this point she was woken up (!) by a crazy guy in the dining room shouting something to the effect of "SHIFIREFUCKDOGSOUTTAWINOW!" I dashed out the door to see what I can see, sure enough there's one very large possum and several small possums doing their very best Jerry Falwell impersonations. But no dog. Now in addition to the Sex or Responsibility Meter, and the Whose-turn-it-is Detector, I come equipped with a Worst Possible Direction Radar.
So about a minute later I'm down the cul-de-sac and out on the highway, wearing nothing but what God, Nike, and Fruit-of-the-Loom gave me. And sure enough, there off in the distant moonlight, right at the edge of my vision, is a small black speck hauling ass for Mexico to dodge the possum murder charges. One more bit of back story- earlier this very same day we'd gotten a call from the vet. The X-rays were back from the specialists, and it turned out this very dog's pending arthroscopic surgery was going to cost us 2,500 smackers, and our vacation plans. Now here the dog was taking our vacation for us. I'm not saying this weighed particularly heavy on my mind, but I did momentarily wonder if we were going to have enough money left over after the dog's surgery for my funeral arrangements. So off I go, sprinting mostly nude down the highway shouting "Porkbutt! Porkbutt!" We named the dog Porkbutt, that's another story.
So the good news is, he must have stopped to smell another dog's scent, because half a mile or so down the road he jumps out of the bushes at me, giving me my third or fourth heart attack of the evening. Now apparently the dog figures that I've also escaped out the dining room window to join him on his Fun Adventures, because he decides to start an impromptu shorter-range version of Catch-Me-If-You-Can on some very surprised gentleman's front lawn. There's a trick to catching an off-leash playful dog. It involves falling on the ground, in this case a sharp gravel driveway, and when he comes over to wrestle you grab his collar. It worked, and we were on our merry way back home.
What surprised me is just how far and fast I made it. It was a lot harder and longer going back home, using one arm to drag a reluctant doggie, and using my other arm to flag down my wife. My wife was now fully clothed and in the car. When she saw I had him, she turned around and drove home to wait for us to return on foot. I didn't ask any questions.
So we all made it safely back inside and gave the dog a stern lecture in traffic safety and told him in no uncertain terms that he better wipe that grin off his face, mister. Everybody turned out OK. Porkbutt had a Fun Adventure, my wife got back to sleep (sigh), the possums had dinner and a bit part in the show, and I have a new lease on life. Or at least a month to month agreement.
So the moral of this story is: Thank God I was wearing sneakers.
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