My last night in the Puget Sound area, Fredo and I stayed at a hotel near Metamuville. Friends took me out to dinner and popped a bottle of Dom Perignon, toasting my new future.
This would be my last moment of happiness until, well, I'll let you know.
I returned to the hotel and walked Fredo to the grassy area. While he did his dirty sinful business, I reflected on my soon-to-be-murdered-in-cold-blood happiness. I felt a strange sensation on my foot. It was warm. Now it was wet, too. Yes, in the inky darkness, Fredo had peed on my foot.
"Jesus Christ, you moron," I laughed, not really realizing the gravity of what had just happened. Everything I owned was in a truck somewhere. I had two pairs of socks for my cross-country trip and exactly one pair of urine-logged shoes. In the morning, the room reeked of pee. He'd gotten me good. I needed a replacement fast, so I drove to Wal-Mart and bought the cheapest, ugliest pair of shoes I've ever seen. But of course, I'd had to wear pee-soaked shoes to the store, so it was a pee-marinated sock and foot that I shoved into the new shoe. I would smell pee the whole way to Spokane, where I immediately bought new shoes and socks and carefully kept them from cross-contamination.
Several days later, Dirt Glazowski showed me his guest room. There was a mattress on the floor for Fredo and a slightly larger one on the floor for me.
"Surely you jest," I said, smelling pee in my beard in advance. I do not sleep with dogs, let alone this dog.
"Or there's a hotel 15 miles away," Dirt replied.
Thus did Fredo and I sleep on the same floor. In the black of night, I smelled something unpleasant. His breath smelled very much like weaponized deer feces—humidified, aerated, and directed at my nostrils. I fumbled for my phone. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the dumbest dog alive.
