Monday, March 16, 2015

The Beast in My Car

Oh man, I am so tired.

You know that I had to endure a whole week with my new kayak before I could get out and play with it, don't you? Did you also know that I finally got my turn this afternoon after walking Teddy four miles with his crazy-haired hyper friend? The funny thing about Teddy's crazy-haired hyper friend is that she's so much like her owner, it makes me laugh.

But this is not about how people pick dogs like themselves. It's not, but I love that about people.

Nope. This is about me driving out to the lake and blowing up my new kayak.

My car-charger air pump didn't come in yet, so Mike found a piece-of-crap air pump and I brought that, knowing it would be a pain in the neck and take forever, but it would work.

So, I've been driving around for a week with my pretty green paddle, my inflatable kayak, my life jacket, wet suit, bathing suit, neoprene socks and gloves, booties, cat straps, so I wouldn't lose my glasses, and my mostly-dry bag.

All I added today was a canteen, snap peas, almonds, hummus, and I was good to go.

It did take forever to blow up my kayak with the stupid-crap air pump. The tube kept falling off and I had no idea how much pressure I was adding. But while I was working, a bunch of people arrived with about four kids and six dogs between them. I heard something snapping and popping in the distance down by the lakeside and the kids, I could tell, were having a great time. So were most of the dogs.

But one dog, the biggest dog, a huge black wet furry beast, ran over around the backside of my car and hopped into the open hatch. When I went over to the back of the car to look at him, he looked sideways at me like there was no way I was going to drag his butt out of my car.

Actually, I felt kind of honored that he chose my car. It was the only car with the hatch open for three miles, but I am still dog-dork enough to be honored by that. His people walked over and laughed at the look on his face. The dog looked at her as if there was no way she was going to drag his butt out of the back of my car too. I told her he was fine there because I wasn't done blowing up my new kayak with the piece-of-worthless air pump. She and I, and her toddler, stood and talked for a while as the great, hairy beast began to relax in the back of my car.

"Get out you beast," she said to him.

"Oh, he can stay for a bit if he wants," I said. "It looks like he's going to stay for a bit."

"Oh, I am so sorry. He's soaking wet."

"Well, he could probably smell the soaking wet dog that usually jumps in there. The whole car is covered in soaking-wet-dog smell."

"Well, okay, as long as he's not going to ruin anything."

I snorted. I walked over and noticed that my kayak instructions were mostly under his soaking wet and gritty-with-sand-and-fur belly. I gently tugged at it and, thankfully, it came out in one piece. It was good because I still hadn't finished reading the instructions. The great hairy beasty looked sideways at me as if there was no way I could order him from the premises, but I nodded at him, not quite reaching out to pet him, and told him to stay. Stay, a word that random dog monsters might know.

"I have four chickens," said the toddler.

"That's really nice," I said.

"They're fluffy and their names are Finger, Larry, Muffin, and Beard."

"Those are good names." I began to fear that Lord-Over-Muffin-Beard and Wet-Black-Fur Monster were going to keep me from paddling all afternoon. I'd already stowed my phone in the car, the driest place I could think of, and I didn't want to dig it back out to see how much time I had left.

Finally, Queen-of-Lord-Over-Muffin-Beard convinced the Fur-Beast that it was safe to leave the smelly, furry hatch of the crazy lady with the piece-of-plastic air pump and the shiny new orange partly-blown-up kayak. She did not get her arm chewed off.

I didn't even get to tell you about getting into my kayak and how it felt to noodle around the lake on a cold sunny day. Well, another time, I suppose.

Thank you for listening, jb

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