How Did I Get Here?

Quote of the Day: “Don’t take life too seriously, or you’ll never get out alive.”

- Unknown

Well, I got away with it another year. This makes 18 which is exactly the age my wife was when we married. So she has been married exactly half her life.

To me.

I know, crazy.

Today, we celebrated 18 years of marriage and to show you how far I have come, I got a present AND a card (from Hallmark, no less) a full 24 hours BEFORE the anniversary. Yes folks, I was an entire day early.

I’ll give you a minute…

The morning started at 0330 because this was when this conversation started..

“Jason, you are thirsty. You are thirsty like Sara Jessica Parker is horse-faced. In other words, you are like near-death thirsty.”

So I stumbled up out of bed, grabbed my humongous plastic Slurpee cup by my bedside, and filled that sucker up in the bathroom sink.

Down the hatch it went until I appeared pregnant.

I laid back down with the sound of the sea filling the bedroom as I sloshed back and forth and the conversation continued.

“You drank too much, Jason. And Buster is taking all your leg room.”

Would you SHUT UP?!!!

It was no use. By 0400, I realized this was one of those very few times that my body just wants up and I can no longer sleep. The only thing that lessened the blow was that I knew I would nap later. I would nap like a friggin’ coma patient!

I got up and started to answer email. Yesterday I had sent out one of my very infrequent mass mailings when I finished my Shamrock Marathon pages while forgetting that if I send something like that out, I will get approximately 10,000 responses.

I spent hours thanking all the kind people who wrote. At about 0530, I emailed Sir Phil and knowing that he was up (it’s Sir Phil after all), I asked him if I could wander over AROUND 0630 and we could take the dogs for a walk. He agreed and I went back to the emails.

Well, I got involved, this happened, that happened, and well, I didn’t get out of the house until 0630 and since it takes about 10 minutes to get over there, I knew he wouldn’t be too happy.

But Buster was ecstatic. Then again, Buster is ALWAYS ecstatic.

“Oooh, ooh, ooh, euthanasia? What’s that? No matter, we are going for a ride, oooh, this is fun, weeeeee….”

I found Sir Phil walking back from a pre-walk and when I exclaimed that it WAS AROUND 0630, he simply said, “No, it’s not.”

I parked my car (in his neighbor’s driveway by accident because

1. He lives in the Stepford neighborhood,
2. I hadn’t been there in awhile and
3. I’m an idiot.)

We took the dogs on a long walk and they had a blast while Sir Phil and I had a great catch-up conversation (the contents of which I’ll explain tomorrow.)

Everything was great until we got back into my car and after about 5 seconds, I started to perceive a certain odor. Was it me? No, I shower once a day, sometimes more.

What the hell is that smell?!

One look at Buster’s guilty face and I knew.

Two times during the walk I caught him rolling and rubbing on the ground. This would not be the first time and to adequately explain what this idiot pooch is capable of, I tried to find another post when he did this last time but came up dry. I write too much.

So now we are in the car and there is a large dark stain on his neck. The inside of the car smells of something near shit mixed with decaying entrails.

We had to drive home with the windows down, heat fully cranked and pointing at ME because it was a bit nippy.

When we got home, I just knew he had rubbed his big stupid head on the upholstery of the car and I’d play hell trying to get that smell out. Damn dog.

But what could I do? He had no idea so I couldn’t yell at him. Hell, he thought he did a GOOD thing!

I took him directly upstairs and he managed to jump on the bed before I yelled at him, scaring a sleeping Carrie in the process.

Happy anniversary, Honey. I’m yelling at a shit-smelling dog on your bed as a wake up. Ain’t life grand?

Buster knew the score even before I grabbed a handful of old towels and the rest of the doggie shampoo. Normally, I’d be careful of getting water in his ears but this required the entire treatment. The wash, wax, and detailing so I didn’t hold back when it came to scrubbing his head, leaving nothing untouched.

Anyway, doesn’t water get in a dog’s ear when he goes underwater? Granted, Buster NEVER gets near water voluntarily but in the general case, does not a submerged dog, by definition, get water into his ears?.

I scrubbed that dumb head until it was a big foamy suds-ball. Then I rinsed it for a half hour before starting the process over. Three times we did this and Buster was not too happy about this but I think he could sense I was even less happy about his new cologne attempt.

Afterwards, I paraded him around to each of the other family members, fresh from their night’s sleep, to smell the dog. I needed to know if they could detect any lingering stench and first-thing-in-the-morning nose was the best test.

Stephanie thought she could smell a little bit and so did Carrie but Alex didn’t smell anything. I figure I’ll just try again in a few days to take care of any lingering nasty with the fringe benefit of harassing Buster again, although he’s too dense to associate the increased bathing routine with his choice to roll around in foul mystery matter.

For dinner, I took Carrie to Logan’s steakhouse where I horsed down steak and ribs. Mmmmm, steak and ribs. Carrie got her fill too, although not as much as I did because by the time we left, I felt like Bloato of Bloatington as we made our way to the movie.

We saw Inside Man with Denzel Washington and while it wasn’t too bad, for some reason my eyes decided to have some kind of reaction and I spent the whole movie squinting and trying to ignore the itching and burning of both my eyes. When we got home, it was better so I have no idea what happened. I might have got some of my cologne in my eyes. That’s wht I get for “gettin’ fancy.”

So overall, we had a great anniversary and spent some time together. It was a far cry from the Friday we spent 18 years ago where I had tests all day and then got married in the afternoon, returning to the cockroach-infested shack that we first lived in. I must say my life has improved dramatically since then and I feel lucky to have someone like Carrie to share that with. Without her, I don’t know where I’d be.

I don’t want to know.

Free Advice for Today: “Never date anyone who has more than two cats.”

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 25th, 2006 at 9:25 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.