jynxed's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back to Big Bear - Part Four "Why aren't we flying? Because So, I can't smell. I've never been able to smell much of anything, and after an unfortunate prank I fell victim to in junior high (one of many), involving boiling hydrochloric acid (ie: chlorine gas), my nose is pretty much shot to shit. I can still smell hydrochloric acid as well as other strong solvents, by I've never in my life smelled a fart or a flower, feet or BO, cookies or a skunk. It's kind of sad, when I stop to think about it, so I try to just not think about the fact that I'm an entire sense short of a normal human being. Despite my lack of odor detection, I knew that Amanda smelling dog food in the car was Bad Thing(tm). There were only two sources of dog food inside the Santa Fe. Amanda had packed a Ziploc baggie full of Cooper's food for the weekend and perhaps that had somehow busted open in the back, or... I continued a few more miles to the heart of Temecula, which, due to astronomical housing costs in Southern California, has practically become a suburb of San Diego, despite being an hour away. I pulled off the freeway and parked in the McDonald's parking lot. We both walked around to the back of the truck and opened the back door. The was Cooper sitting in his kennel, looking more or less like he always does, albeit a little more freaked out than usual. And there, in the back of the kennel, was a nice huge pile of dog vomit. I say "pile" because that's precisely what it was. Cooper doesn't bother chewing his food like a normal dog. Any crunching we hear during his devouring of the two cups of Eukanuba kibble is strictly an accident. The dog swallows it all whole, and it came back up that way, although much, much soggier. I opened the kennel and let the poor carsick dog out, managing to only get one nice paw-print of doggie puke on my shorts. Amanda put Cooper's leash on and took him for a walk around a nearby grassy knoll. I went ahead and bought us dinner before cleaning out the kennel, figuring I'd rather not spoil my appetite. We ate our sandwiches and fries while Cooper sat at our feet, content to just drink lots and lots of water. Then it was time to clean the kennel. Ugh. I went into the bathroom to grab a nice stack of paper towels and was greeted by a pair of scratched-up chrome blow dryers. Yippee! I considered rolling out a few dozen yards of toilet paper, but opted instead for a stack of napkins from the condiment counter. What gets me is how dogs manage to reproduce their food. You give the dog two cups of dog food, and somehow he manages to yak up about ten cups. How the hell does he do that? I'd be interested to know, then, if he ate the ten cups of dog yak, whether he'd barf up twenty cups if he ralphed again... Scientific research, you know. Solving world hunger one technicolor yawn at a time... Of course, if you put a steaming bowl of Quaker Dog Spew in front of some starving pot-bellied Ethiopean kid, he'd probably look up at you and say "'Sup mothafucka? Stop being a cheap ass an' gimme a fuckin' steak homey!" You just can't win. Anyway, I managed to get the puke all cleaned up and we put the poor dog back in the kennel and hit the road again. We still had over an hour to go, and much of that was going to be up windy mountain roads, a surefire way to kill Cooper if there ever was one. Poor dog. An hour later, just outside of Lake Arrowhead, the dog popped again. By then, there wasn't much light left and we wound up cleaning out the kennel at the side of the road. This time I wasn't so lucky, and Cooper flailed a bit at me as I helped him down from the car. The result was a shirt striped with puke. Damn it feels good to be a gangsta. We finally made it to Big Bear, and there was much rejoicing (yay). Amanda's parents were having dinner at a sushi joint, and she went inside to get the keys and directions to the cabin. I would have joined her, but I'm under the impression that vomit stains aren't yet the latest fashion trend, except at political conventions. Ten minutes later, we parked in front of the cabin, and I took a deep, relieved breath. I could take a shower, and we could get some sleep, and things would be all okay in the morning. Right? *there was nothing but the sound of crickets, and in the distance, a lonely dark barks...* [to be continued...] 12:06 a.m. - July 13, 2004 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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