Devilslad
05-18-2003, 11:54 AM
...that I thought Pat McManus was funny. Here is a story of his. Any of you who have had dogs should be able to relate.
Silent but Deadly
"Although I’ve always made an effort to avoid gross and insensitive topics in these discourses, I believe the time has come for me to take a serious look at dog flatulence. When I say “look” I don’t mean that, except in extreme cases, you can actually see dog flatulence, but only that it deserves some study, particularly by those of us who share with bird dogs the enclosed cab of a vehicle.
First of all, when these unfortunate occurrences take place, you should not yell at the dog. It will do no good and may only make matters worse. The dog too is suffering, as is perhaps obvious when he shoots you that pained little grin. There’s no point in making him feel worse than he already does.
The reason this crude topic has come to mind is that the other day I was passed on the highway by some friends of mine returning from a pheasant hunt and driving well over the speed limit. Not only did the dogs have their heads hanging out the vehicle’s windows, but so did the hunters. It was a practice I myself have engaged in from time to time while hunting with my dog, Clem the Recalcitrant. Nevertheless, I think it an extremely unsafe procedure, and decided that I should write a piece in which I offer a remedy for this unfortunate malady, one that contributes so much to the downside of bird hunting.
After contemplating the matter for several hours, however, and even with Clem under my desk doing his best to keep my mind on the topic, I was unable to come up with a remedy. So my only useful advice is, “Live with it!” My contemplation, nevertheless, reminded me of a social disaster perpetrated by my miserable old dog, Strange, whom I more or less owned during my teenage years. I will relate that catastrophe here instead.
My mother had named the dog Stranger in the hope, as she later claimed, that he was just passing through. He wasn’t. He stayed on for a dozen years, biting the hands that fed him, those hands usually belonging to my grandmother. He was the kind of dog that, had he been human, would probably have made his living as a loan shark working out of the trunk of his car. A relatively small dog of mixed breed and possibly of mixed species, he possessed a high degree of intelligence, which, as far as anyone ever noticed anyway, he never put to the service of the family that had taken him in. Indeed, had our house caught fire, the arson investigators might have come up with the standard photo of the crowd of spectators, one of whom might be the arsonist himself. In the front row, I’m quite sure, would have been a little brown-and-white dog, a look of bemusement on his face and possibly a can of kerosene next to him. I don’t mean to imply that Strange, as his name was eventually and more appropriately shortened to, was the worst dog in the world, but if you were to reverse the Boy Scout motto you would pretty much define his character: untrustworthy, disloyal, unhelpful, etc. The event in question began shortly after the family had stuffed ourselves with the typical Thanksgiving dinner. I lay suffering on the couch, in deep remorse over my recent gluttony and regretting that I had asked my former girlfriend, Olga Bonemarrow, to go to a movie with me that evening. I couldn’t even consider breaking the date, because it was my first one since Olga had broken up with me the last time. She severed our relationship, as she had explained, because she thought we should each start dating other people and also because I was insensitive, inattentive, inane, ignorant and gross.
I vaguely heard my grandmother call to my mother, “What do you want me to do with all this leftover turkey gravy?”
Mom replied, “Whatever.”
I then heard Gram open the door to the utility room, where Strange resided during cold weather. If it occurred to me that it might be a very bad idea to feed turkey gravy to a dog, I don’t recall, maybe because I could foresee no consequence for me.
The next parameter of the disaster was a mountain car my friend Retch Sweeney and I had bought together to use on our camping trips. The car had come without a backseat, as well as without brakes, headlights, taillights, spare tire, various windows, tailpipe, muffler, front fenders and assorted other accessories. The partition between the backseat and the trunk had either rusted out or been cut out by us, I can’t recall which. It was inside this convenient space that we stored all our camping gear: sleeping bags, tarps, etc., and in which we sometimes slept, out of concern for the elements, primarily bears, cougars and snakes. We named the car Miss Peabody, in honor of our favorite high-school English teacher.
Now, you must try to visualize this next part, as I myself had to do in reconstructing the scene of the crime. Strange is slurping up—“yowp gobble glub urp slurp choke glub”—his massive serving of turkey gravy, augmented with other Thanksgiving edibles. Finished, he is booted out into the cold by Gram. Shortly thereafter, he begins to inflate. His skin grows taut, stretches and expands, gradually enveloping his legs up to his paws. Only half his tail protrudes. He takes on the appearance of a small hairy zeppelin. Slowly, he rises off the ground. Using his paws as flippers and the tip of his tail as a rudder, he floats around the house, through a window opening and into Miss Peabody, the mountain car. There he snuggles down under the camping gear and, presumably, goes to sleep. He is a ticking time bomb.
It was about then that I said to my mother, “Well, it’s almost time to pick up Olga. I’d better go crank up Miss Peabody.”
“I really hate that,” Mom said.
“Yeah, me too,” I agreed. “The last time I tried to crank her, she kicked back and nearly broke my arm.”
“Get out of here,” Mom said.
I finally got the snow scraped off Miss Peabody, started her up and drove over to Olga’s. She came out of the house wearing a coat with a fur collar and a matching fur hat and she was truly a vision of loveliness, her thick blonde hair cascading down over her shoulders and her blue eyes sparkling in the crisp cold air. My heart leaped at the sight of her. It was hard to imagine that this was the same girl who a few brief years before would throw me down, grab my ears and beat my head up and down on the ground. She was carrying a flat, open box of pastries.
“What’s that for?” I asked, hopefully.
“Oh,” she said, in her honeysuckle voice, “they’re some pastries Mother and I made for the church bake sale tomorrow. Mind if we drop them off on the way to the movie?”
“Not at all. That is just so nice of you and your mom, helping the poor,” I replied sensitively.
We headed off toward the church.
“You look very nice this evening,”
I said, attentively.
“Thank you,” she replied.
“You have a nice Thanksgiving?”
I said, trying to avoid the inane.
“Very nice,” she said. “And you?”
“Oh, yes indeed. Very nice.”
We were about halfway to the church when Strange, suddenly, silently, sinisterly—deflated. Later, trying to reconstruct the event, I thought I might have heard a faint whooosh, but by then I’d suffered so much brain damage I couldn’t be sure. Olga and I were instantly engulfed by a plume of fume so powerful it fogged my glasses and sent tears streaming down my face. If Miss Peabody had had a speed faster than seven miles an hour, I might have driven off the road. (On the plus side, though, the fume ate most of the rust off the dashboard.)
Naturally, as far as I was at the moment aware, there could be only one suspect for this atmospheric atrocity.
My eyes streaming tears, I glanced at the suspect. Her eyes bored into me like a pair of stilettos. Her face glowed a fiery red. She was obviously embarrassed, I thought. And rightfully so! I was about to blurt out a gross comment, when I suddenly caught myself. No point in risking another breakup, even though at the moment Olga’s appeal had somewhat diminished for me. I tried frantically to come up with something sensitive to say, something attentive, something that wasn’t gross. The box of pastries on her lap drew my attention. There was a particularly large cherry tart sitting on top. I nodded at it, pretending I’d noticed absolutely nothing of an olfactory nature.
“You do that big one?” I choked out.
Driving home alone, or not quite alone, because the true villain had emerged by then, to take as much credit for the ruckus as he could, I was pulled over by Sheriff Bonemarrow, who just happened to be Olga’s father. He hated Miss Peabody, the car, and from time to time had actually threatened Retch and me with bodily harm, if he caught us driving it on the highway again. Fortunately, tonight I was on a back road. The sheriff took off his hat and used it to fan his way through the black cloud of exhaust.
“What do you burn in this thing?” he growled. “Wet leaves?” It was his standard line. He glanced around the inside of Miss Peabody. “Where’s Olga? I thought you and Olga were going to a movie tonight.”
“Naw, Olga broke up with me again.”
“What this time?”
“The usual. Inattentive, insensitive, inane and gross.”
“Women!” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Women.”
“One other thing, Patrick. What’s that red stuff all over your face? Better not be lipstick!”
“Cherry tart,” I said. “It’s cherry tart. What happened was….”
“Stop, I don’t want to know. One more thing, though.”
“What’s that?” I said.
“Why’s your dog riding on the roof of the car? He looks half froze.”
“Turkey gravy,” I said. “Gram fed him turkey gravy.”
“Turkey gravy! Fed a dog turkey gravy in a populated area! I think that’s a felony! I should go arrest her!”
“I wish you would,” I said."
Patrick McManus
Devilslad
Silent but Deadly
"Although I’ve always made an effort to avoid gross and insensitive topics in these discourses, I believe the time has come for me to take a serious look at dog flatulence. When I say “look” I don’t mean that, except in extreme cases, you can actually see dog flatulence, but only that it deserves some study, particularly by those of us who share with bird dogs the enclosed cab of a vehicle.
First of all, when these unfortunate occurrences take place, you should not yell at the dog. It will do no good and may only make matters worse. The dog too is suffering, as is perhaps obvious when he shoots you that pained little grin. There’s no point in making him feel worse than he already does.
The reason this crude topic has come to mind is that the other day I was passed on the highway by some friends of mine returning from a pheasant hunt and driving well over the speed limit. Not only did the dogs have their heads hanging out the vehicle’s windows, but so did the hunters. It was a practice I myself have engaged in from time to time while hunting with my dog, Clem the Recalcitrant. Nevertheless, I think it an extremely unsafe procedure, and decided that I should write a piece in which I offer a remedy for this unfortunate malady, one that contributes so much to the downside of bird hunting.
After contemplating the matter for several hours, however, and even with Clem under my desk doing his best to keep my mind on the topic, I was unable to come up with a remedy. So my only useful advice is, “Live with it!” My contemplation, nevertheless, reminded me of a social disaster perpetrated by my miserable old dog, Strange, whom I more or less owned during my teenage years. I will relate that catastrophe here instead.
My mother had named the dog Stranger in the hope, as she later claimed, that he was just passing through. He wasn’t. He stayed on for a dozen years, biting the hands that fed him, those hands usually belonging to my grandmother. He was the kind of dog that, had he been human, would probably have made his living as a loan shark working out of the trunk of his car. A relatively small dog of mixed breed and possibly of mixed species, he possessed a high degree of intelligence, which, as far as anyone ever noticed anyway, he never put to the service of the family that had taken him in. Indeed, had our house caught fire, the arson investigators might have come up with the standard photo of the crowd of spectators, one of whom might be the arsonist himself. In the front row, I’m quite sure, would have been a little brown-and-white dog, a look of bemusement on his face and possibly a can of kerosene next to him. I don’t mean to imply that Strange, as his name was eventually and more appropriately shortened to, was the worst dog in the world, but if you were to reverse the Boy Scout motto you would pretty much define his character: untrustworthy, disloyal, unhelpful, etc. The event in question began shortly after the family had stuffed ourselves with the typical Thanksgiving dinner. I lay suffering on the couch, in deep remorse over my recent gluttony and regretting that I had asked my former girlfriend, Olga Bonemarrow, to go to a movie with me that evening. I couldn’t even consider breaking the date, because it was my first one since Olga had broken up with me the last time. She severed our relationship, as she had explained, because she thought we should each start dating other people and also because I was insensitive, inattentive, inane, ignorant and gross.
I vaguely heard my grandmother call to my mother, “What do you want me to do with all this leftover turkey gravy?”
Mom replied, “Whatever.”
I then heard Gram open the door to the utility room, where Strange resided during cold weather. If it occurred to me that it might be a very bad idea to feed turkey gravy to a dog, I don’t recall, maybe because I could foresee no consequence for me.
The next parameter of the disaster was a mountain car my friend Retch Sweeney and I had bought together to use on our camping trips. The car had come without a backseat, as well as without brakes, headlights, taillights, spare tire, various windows, tailpipe, muffler, front fenders and assorted other accessories. The partition between the backseat and the trunk had either rusted out or been cut out by us, I can’t recall which. It was inside this convenient space that we stored all our camping gear: sleeping bags, tarps, etc., and in which we sometimes slept, out of concern for the elements, primarily bears, cougars and snakes. We named the car Miss Peabody, in honor of our favorite high-school English teacher.
Now, you must try to visualize this next part, as I myself had to do in reconstructing the scene of the crime. Strange is slurping up—“yowp gobble glub urp slurp choke glub”—his massive serving of turkey gravy, augmented with other Thanksgiving edibles. Finished, he is booted out into the cold by Gram. Shortly thereafter, he begins to inflate. His skin grows taut, stretches and expands, gradually enveloping his legs up to his paws. Only half his tail protrudes. He takes on the appearance of a small hairy zeppelin. Slowly, he rises off the ground. Using his paws as flippers and the tip of his tail as a rudder, he floats around the house, through a window opening and into Miss Peabody, the mountain car. There he snuggles down under the camping gear and, presumably, goes to sleep. He is a ticking time bomb.
It was about then that I said to my mother, “Well, it’s almost time to pick up Olga. I’d better go crank up Miss Peabody.”
“I really hate that,” Mom said.
“Yeah, me too,” I agreed. “The last time I tried to crank her, she kicked back and nearly broke my arm.”
“Get out of here,” Mom said.
I finally got the snow scraped off Miss Peabody, started her up and drove over to Olga’s. She came out of the house wearing a coat with a fur collar and a matching fur hat and she was truly a vision of loveliness, her thick blonde hair cascading down over her shoulders and her blue eyes sparkling in the crisp cold air. My heart leaped at the sight of her. It was hard to imagine that this was the same girl who a few brief years before would throw me down, grab my ears and beat my head up and down on the ground. She was carrying a flat, open box of pastries.
“What’s that for?” I asked, hopefully.
“Oh,” she said, in her honeysuckle voice, “they’re some pastries Mother and I made for the church bake sale tomorrow. Mind if we drop them off on the way to the movie?”
“Not at all. That is just so nice of you and your mom, helping the poor,” I replied sensitively.
We headed off toward the church.
“You look very nice this evening,”
I said, attentively.
“Thank you,” she replied.
“You have a nice Thanksgiving?”
I said, trying to avoid the inane.
“Very nice,” she said. “And you?”
“Oh, yes indeed. Very nice.”
We were about halfway to the church when Strange, suddenly, silently, sinisterly—deflated. Later, trying to reconstruct the event, I thought I might have heard a faint whooosh, but by then I’d suffered so much brain damage I couldn’t be sure. Olga and I were instantly engulfed by a plume of fume so powerful it fogged my glasses and sent tears streaming down my face. If Miss Peabody had had a speed faster than seven miles an hour, I might have driven off the road. (On the plus side, though, the fume ate most of the rust off the dashboard.)
Naturally, as far as I was at the moment aware, there could be only one suspect for this atmospheric atrocity.
My eyes streaming tears, I glanced at the suspect. Her eyes bored into me like a pair of stilettos. Her face glowed a fiery red. She was obviously embarrassed, I thought. And rightfully so! I was about to blurt out a gross comment, when I suddenly caught myself. No point in risking another breakup, even though at the moment Olga’s appeal had somewhat diminished for me. I tried frantically to come up with something sensitive to say, something attentive, something that wasn’t gross. The box of pastries on her lap drew my attention. There was a particularly large cherry tart sitting on top. I nodded at it, pretending I’d noticed absolutely nothing of an olfactory nature.
“You do that big one?” I choked out.
Driving home alone, or not quite alone, because the true villain had emerged by then, to take as much credit for the ruckus as he could, I was pulled over by Sheriff Bonemarrow, who just happened to be Olga’s father. He hated Miss Peabody, the car, and from time to time had actually threatened Retch and me with bodily harm, if he caught us driving it on the highway again. Fortunately, tonight I was on a back road. The sheriff took off his hat and used it to fan his way through the black cloud of exhaust.
“What do you burn in this thing?” he growled. “Wet leaves?” It was his standard line. He glanced around the inside of Miss Peabody. “Where’s Olga? I thought you and Olga were going to a movie tonight.”
“Naw, Olga broke up with me again.”
“What this time?”
“The usual. Inattentive, insensitive, inane and gross.”
“Women!” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Women.”
“One other thing, Patrick. What’s that red stuff all over your face? Better not be lipstick!”
“Cherry tart,” I said. “It’s cherry tart. What happened was….”
“Stop, I don’t want to know. One more thing, though.”
“What’s that?” I said.
“Why’s your dog riding on the roof of the car? He looks half froze.”
“Turkey gravy,” I said. “Gram fed him turkey gravy.”
“Turkey gravy! Fed a dog turkey gravy in a populated area! I think that’s a felony! I should go arrest her!”
“I wish you would,” I said."
Patrick McManus
Devilslad