Mostly Anecdotal

Sonny, a friend and an ex-hockey player, always did things in twos. He lived with two women. He bought them both new cars for Christmas one year, and let them make the payments. When he bought dogs, again it was two—Dalmatians.

I hadn’t seen Sonny for a while when I ran into him at the Mall. He flashed his hockey player smile, perfect teeth, not the originals, and under each arm he carried a small dog.

“Holy shit, it’s Sonny” I said. “I haven’t seen you for, uh—”

“Two years,” he said. “How ya doing?”

“Good,” I said. “Last time I saw you the dogs were bigger, and they were Dalmatians, and now you have two.” I hesitated.

“Maltese,” he said.

“Why the change?” I asked.

He smiled. “Little dog little doo doo, big dog big doo doo,” he said.

“Two dogs double the doo doo,” I said.

I thought about adding no dog no doo doo, but I didn’t.

I recently told this story to a friend, and when I finished she said, “I’d rather have a big dog.”

“Weren’t you listening?” I said. “Big dog big doo doo.”

“I heard you,” she said, “but I have experience with both. You’re right, big dog big doo doo, little dog little doo doo, but that’s only part of the story.”

“And,” I said.

“Big doo doo easy to see little doo doo not so easy.”

She was right. I thought about adding no dog no doo doo, but I didn’t.

You might be wondering what happened to Sonny. He finally decided on one of the two women and moved to Las Vegas where he launched a career as an Elvis Impersonator. I don’t know if he still has the two dogs.

I’m not the kind of guy who would wink at a firefly, though I once said hello to an ant. One thing is for sure; I don’t much like snails. I don’t know much about them, but have heard they are fond of beer. I also know they blow their noses on the little private escalator they use to move around on, and that they appear when it rains.

I like it when it rains. I like the way the air smells. I like seeing the drops of water on the rose like tiny tears of joy. I was out getting the newspaper a few days ago after a light rain, and noticed that someone had left the hose curled up on the front porch. We have a reel for the hose that has a handle on the side. I don’t use the handle anymore because on each turn of the crank a rose bush says a rude hello to the back of my hand. So I placed one hand on either side of the reel, and started turning it, pulling it down and then gripping higher up and pulling again. It was then I noticed a snail near where I was gripping the reel, yuk.

He looked as though he was ready to slime me. I was thinking I should call Snail Busters, but instead I placed my little finger against my thumb and attempted to flick him off the reel and onto the ground. I didn’t use enough force, and though I could see his grip loosen a bit it wasn’t enough to dislodge him. I tried again, and failed again. I didn’t have the heart to flip him really hard, and so I ended my quest to remove him and continued to reel in the hose.

It was only later that I learned that snails are pests, they eat plants, and can wreak havoc in a garden. My wife suggested beer-traps. I didn’t know it at the time. The idea was to kill them by drowning, and so putting mayonnaise jar lids filled with beer around the garden wouldn’t get it done.

I’m not sure what the solution is to our snail problem. I don’t like the crunching sound when I inadvertently step on one, and I don’t want them destroying our garden. Maybe we can negotiate, maybe there is some way to convince the snails not to eat our garden. I’m willing to give it a try. Maybe they could just call out for Chinese.

There is an ant in my house, and there is a bookcase attached to the wall above and behind the desk my computer sits on. Most days I see the ant walking along the lower edge of the bookshelf, he walks at least 30 minutes every day. I figure he is on some sort of fitness regimen.

I know there are some of you, who, if you saw an ant walking across the edge of the bookcase in front of you would reach out and pinch him between your forefinger and your thumb, or maybe between your middle finger and thumb, and then you’d squeeze him gently. It wouldn’t take much, and then you’d flick him toward the wastebasket. Not me, I like having an ant in the house.

The edge is perpendicular to the ground so I’m not sure how he manages not to fall, sticky feet I’m guessing. He always walks from my right to my left and around the corner of the bookcase and out of sight. Then somehow he walks behind the bookcase and later reappears again walking right to left and around the corner. I don’t remember seeing him appear until he is at least a third of the way along the edge, I’m thinking he must have an invisibility cloak like that young Potter fellow.

Where is he when he’s not circling above me? Why he’s on the wall near where the cat sleeps. The cat and he like to play, though not as much now as they once did. One day I saw the cat trying to catch the ant, usually the cat just sits and stares at him tilting his head to one side and then to the other. One day the cat was successful. He had the ant in his paw, and then he started hopping around and shaking his paw. I laughed. I’m not sure if I should have. Was the ant just tickling his foot or was he biting? “Play nice,” I said. This continued for a time, and then either the ant got tired of the game and jumped to the floor or the cat shook him loose.

I was worried about the ant, I didn’t see him land; he may have had a hard landing. I didn’t see the ant for the rest of the day, but the next morning there he was doing his wall walking right in front of me. I said, “hi ant, how you doing.” He ignored me.

Curiosity didn’t kill our cat, but it came within a foot. I was cooking eggs for breakfast and throwing the shells into the sink, and mostly hitting the target. My target was the disposal. The cat thinking it was a game jumped on the counter and started swatting the shells as they traced an arc between the stove and the sink.

I’ve been training the cat to stay off the counter. I use a bottle of water with its spray nozzle set on stream, but the bottle was across the room and so I made do with the tools at hand.

I only meant to scare him. I never imagined that he would put his foot in the disposal. I never imagined when I flipped the switch that he would swat the last remaining shell from the counter to the sink and through the black rubber fingers that guard the entrance to the whirling blades below. I never imagined that the cat would reach for the shell and try to prevent its descent.

I tried to turn off the disposal, but I’m not as quick as a cat. His paw disappeared into hole, he shrieked, and jumped from the sink onto the floor and disappeared. The cat’s hiding, and I can’t find him. I don’t see a trail of blood, and I checked the disposal, no paw there. But then there wouldn’t be would there. I hope he’s okay.

It’s a few days later now, and I still haven’t seen the cat. My wife says he’s just fine no thanks to me.

“I wrote about it,” I said. “Have you read it?”

“Yes, I read your story,” she said. “You’re writing more now,” she said, “and you’re lying more too.”

“Lying,” I said. “I’m not lying they’re embellishments.”

“Lies,” she said.

“Simple exaggeration,” I said.

“Lies,” she replied.

“Poetic license,” I retorted.

“Lies,” she insisted.

“The stories are mostly anecdotal, mostly,” I said.

“The stories are mostly lies,” she said.

“They are the way I remember them,” I said.

“Right,” she said, “you and Scooter.”

There is nothing like the smell of dog shit in the morning especially if it is squishing between your toes. My wife’s dog Chloe, a Maltese, is ‘trained’. She scratches at my shin and barks, Chloe is asking to go out. Is she scratching because she has business to do, or is she scratching because her business is already done? Will I find evidence of her business at one her regular drop-off locations? Is she going to do her business, or is she going outside, in the cold, to make amends for business she’s already done?

I open the door, the question, will she stay or will she go now? There is no certainty, the odds no better than fifty-fifty that she’ll do the right thing. She goes. I watch her through the French doors looking for a place to make the deposit. She zeroes in on a prospective site, she circles, the circle getting tighter and tighter, but no, this is not the spot and she moves on. Another location, and the ritual begins again. Is she serious, or is she waiting for me to turn away and then to pretend that it is ‘mission accomplished’.

Her search reminds me that I have business of my own to do. I’m no sooner seated than I realize that the deposit she is pretending to make outside is in the room with me. Yuk. She’s a bad dog, and I tell her so but she can’t hear me, she’s still outside play acting. I finish my business, clean up her business, and return to let her in. She wants praise for her recent ‘business trip’. The fact that she did no business doesn’t seem to concern her. I ignore her calls for praise, she gets none, and no frequent pooper miles for this trip.