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June 17, 2011
newspapers, cigarettes, and squatting in a field
I fancied myself a news junkie at a very young age. As soon as I could read, I was enduring lectures about the importance of letting Dad also enjoy the newspaper for which, I gathered, he'd paid. Fine, fine. Whatever, whiner. No newspaper was as coveted as Sunday morning's, of course. I was banned from touching it until he had.
Thus was the following ritual born.
Dad would sit on the toilet in the half-bathroom just off our dining area, chain-smoking. Those eating breakfast nearby watched the reverse waterfall of smoke billow out from under the door. At fairly regular intervals, I would rap twice, softly, and a section of the newspaper would slide under the door. This was his discard. And so we would read the paper section by section, a daisy-chain of news, sports, comics, carcinogens, and, most likely, trace amounts of fecal coliform.
News, Comics, Sports, Movies, and Parade magazine were my holy grail sections. Business and Religion were deathly. Then as now.
Dad would not be rushed. He zealously guarded his toilet time, and woe be unto the 7 year old who knocked too hard or too often. Time moved glacially. He dragged it out for hours upon hours. How my father so enjoyed squatting on the toilet, I did not fully understand.
I now have two dogs: 3 year old Dex and 10 week old Fredo. Fredo positively mauls Dex. He's mauling her right now, in her bed, and she's taking it like a champ. The mauling is unremitting, and most times, she even seems to enjoy it.
But at least once a day when I take the dogs outside, Dex points herself toward the large expanse of my front yard and stares at me pleadingly. This is new behavior, and it took me a few times before I figured out what she was requesting.
John, I don't ask you for much, and I think you'd agree that I handled the recent incursion in our home amazingly well. Well, I need a favor. I would like to go take a nice, long dump. In peace. This is the only quiet time I ever get. Ever. Can you please make this happen? I beg of you.And so I pick up Fredo and Dex races off. How a dog can so enjoy squatting in a field, I do not fully understand.
posted by john at 7:06 AM • permalink