ninanevermore (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ninanevermore) wrote2006-07-10 03:03 pm
ninanevermore) wrote2006-07-10 03:03 pm
Monday - Dead Dogs Can Still Fetch
Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about my husband's dead dog and how she helped me find the box of checks that had been missing for a week. She had them, actually. You know how dogs are. Just because she has been dead and cremated for the last 10 years doesn't mean she can't wander off with things that aren't hers.
To be fair, I don't think the dead dog actually took the box of checks. I think it was my year-and-a half-old son who did. But the dead dog wound up with them.
The dead dog's name is Spandau, and she was the only thing that Jeff kept from his first marriage.
"My ex-wife wanted a baby, so I got her a puppy and hoped that would tide her over," he told me. He said that he suspected the marriage was on it's last legs and he didn't think that a child would be a good idea under the circumstances. When his wife left for greener pastures, she left behind her puppy and gave Jeff with full custody of her.
Spandau (It is pronounced "Span-dow;" if you are old enough, you may remember the 80's pop band called Spandau Ballet) was an 80-pound black Labrador retriever. She was a typical Lab, with a sweet disposition and a compulsion to play fetch with whatever human she could find willing to toss a tennis ball or a stick. Your arm would tire long before she ever did, and a game of fetch always ended with her looking balefully at you and reluctantly returning home when you insisted that you couldn't possibly lift your arm for another toss.
Jeff had to have her put to sleep when she was 14 years old and she was too sick from cancer even to stand up. He couldn't bear the idea of her body going into a landfill, so he had her cremated. They sent her home with him in zip-lock bag filled with about 4 pound of gritty ashes, enclosed in a plastic box that is vaguely coffin-shaped. When we moved in together and I began staking out what drawers and closet space would be mine, I discovered the memorial he had set up for her in the top middle drawer of the dresser. He had lined the drawer with a dark wine-colored velvet, and the little plastic coffin bearing her remains lay in there next to her silver choke collar, her favorite fetching stick and a stack of photographs of her. I chose a different drawer for my underwear and left the shrine intact.
It remained undisturbed until recently, when the newest member of the family happened upon it. Because, unlike his mother, my son is very good about closing any door or drawer that he opens, we were not aware of his discovery until yesterday.
Jeff likes to pay our bills old school, by check. He doesn't trust electronic banking. I don't trust the US Postal Service, but if he wants to risk it then I'm willing to let him. Last week, a new box of checks arrived in the mailbox. I brought them in and set them down next to my purse. When Jeff asked about them the next day, they were nowhere to be found. We asked our son if he had seen them.
"Da!" he replied, "ba dabadaba mada!" Then he laughed and walked away to find a toy.
We looked under the couches, in the toy boxes and on every flat surface we could find. No checks. Our son would give no further information beyond his original statement, which we had found cryptic and unhelpful, to say the least.
On Saturday, he turned up with an odd plastic container that I didn't recognize. He had scribbled on it with a marker that I had to confiscate (the marker incident resulted in a bath for the little artist, who had decorated himself and the coffee table with it, as well as the plastic box). I though the container might be one that Jeff had on hand to mix paint in or something. When I asked him about it, he didn't recognize it, either, but took it out to the garage to see if he could find a use for it.
Then, yesterday afternoon, my son handed me a silver choke collar with two rabies vaccination tags on it, dated 1994 and 1996. I knew immediately where it came from. I went to put it back in the shrine drawer, where I found the bag of ashes laying on an upside-down plastic lid. It now occurred to me what the mysterious container was, so I retrieved it from the garage and put Spandau back inside of her graffiti-covered coffin and hoped she would be able to rest in peace this time. When I pulled the drawer all of the way out to make sure that the shrine was arranged in a dignified manner, I saw a small brown, rectangular box in the back corner of the drawer. It was the checks that we had been looking for for days. The dead dog had them all along.
Some people may say that we should keep a closer eye on our son, especially if we don't want to find dead dog scattered all over the house one of these days. These are people who have never lived in the same house with a toddler. Toddlers are fast and cunning, and they can thwart your best efforts to keep them in line. In the time it takes to tie your shoes or sift through the mail, a toddler can empty out the pantry or climb to the top of a tall book case to investigate the priceless, breakable antique that you have put up there for "safe keeping." It is physically impossible to keep an eye on one all of the time. Items will get broken. Furniture will be scribble on. Dead members of the household will be disturbed. These things cannot be helped.
The dead dog is not the only one in peril in our house. Until my son gets a little older and learns some respect for things that aren't his (When does this happen? At age 10? 15? 21?), nothing is safe or sacred in our house unless it is under lock and key. If he learns to pick locks, not even then.
The next time something comes up missing though, I am going check with the dead dog first. She loved to retrieve things for me in life, so I trust her to hand over anything she finds in her vicinity now. It's just the kind of dog that she was.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
To be fair, I don't think the dead dog actually took the box of checks. I think it was my year-and-a half-old son who did. But the dead dog wound up with them.
The dead dog's name is Spandau, and she was the only thing that Jeff kept from his first marriage.
"My ex-wife wanted a baby, so I got her a puppy and hoped that would tide her over," he told me. He said that he suspected the marriage was on it's last legs and he didn't think that a child would be a good idea under the circumstances. When his wife left for greener pastures, she left behind her puppy and gave Jeff with full custody of her.
Spandau (It is pronounced "Span-dow;" if you are old enough, you may remember the 80's pop band called Spandau Ballet) was an 80-pound black Labrador retriever. She was a typical Lab, with a sweet disposition and a compulsion to play fetch with whatever human she could find willing to toss a tennis ball or a stick. Your arm would tire long before she ever did, and a game of fetch always ended with her looking balefully at you and reluctantly returning home when you insisted that you couldn't possibly lift your arm for another toss.
Jeff had to have her put to sleep when she was 14 years old and she was too sick from cancer even to stand up. He couldn't bear the idea of her body going into a landfill, so he had her cremated. They sent her home with him in zip-lock bag filled with about 4 pound of gritty ashes, enclosed in a plastic box that is vaguely coffin-shaped. When we moved in together and I began staking out what drawers and closet space would be mine, I discovered the memorial he had set up for her in the top middle drawer of the dresser. He had lined the drawer with a dark wine-colored velvet, and the little plastic coffin bearing her remains lay in there next to her silver choke collar, her favorite fetching stick and a stack of photographs of her. I chose a different drawer for my underwear and left the shrine intact.
It remained undisturbed until recently, when the newest member of the family happened upon it. Because, unlike his mother, my son is very good about closing any door or drawer that he opens, we were not aware of his discovery until yesterday.
Jeff likes to pay our bills old school, by check. He doesn't trust electronic banking. I don't trust the US Postal Service, but if he wants to risk it then I'm willing to let him. Last week, a new box of checks arrived in the mailbox. I brought them in and set them down next to my purse. When Jeff asked about them the next day, they were nowhere to be found. We asked our son if he had seen them.
"Da!" he replied, "ba dabadaba mada!" Then he laughed and walked away to find a toy.
We looked under the couches, in the toy boxes and on every flat surface we could find. No checks. Our son would give no further information beyond his original statement, which we had found cryptic and unhelpful, to say the least.
On Saturday, he turned up with an odd plastic container that I didn't recognize. He had scribbled on it with a marker that I had to confiscate (the marker incident resulted in a bath for the little artist, who had decorated himself and the coffee table with it, as well as the plastic box). I though the container might be one that Jeff had on hand to mix paint in or something. When I asked him about it, he didn't recognize it, either, but took it out to the garage to see if he could find a use for it.
Then, yesterday afternoon, my son handed me a silver choke collar with two rabies vaccination tags on it, dated 1994 and 1996. I knew immediately where it came from. I went to put it back in the shrine drawer, where I found the bag of ashes laying on an upside-down plastic lid. It now occurred to me what the mysterious container was, so I retrieved it from the garage and put Spandau back inside of her graffiti-covered coffin and hoped she would be able to rest in peace this time. When I pulled the drawer all of the way out to make sure that the shrine was arranged in a dignified manner, I saw a small brown, rectangular box in the back corner of the drawer. It was the checks that we had been looking for for days. The dead dog had them all along.
Some people may say that we should keep a closer eye on our son, especially if we don't want to find dead dog scattered all over the house one of these days. These are people who have never lived in the same house with a toddler. Toddlers are fast and cunning, and they can thwart your best efforts to keep them in line. In the time it takes to tie your shoes or sift through the mail, a toddler can empty out the pantry or climb to the top of a tall book case to investigate the priceless, breakable antique that you have put up there for "safe keeping." It is physically impossible to keep an eye on one all of the time. Items will get broken. Furniture will be scribble on. Dead members of the household will be disturbed. These things cannot be helped.
The dead dog is not the only one in peril in our house. Until my son gets a little older and learns some respect for things that aren't his (When does this happen? At age 10? 15? 21?), nothing is safe or sacred in our house unless it is under lock and key. If he learns to pick locks, not even then.
The next time something comes up missing though, I am going check with the dead dog first. She loved to retrieve things for me in life, so I trust her to hand over anything she finds in her vicinity now. It's just the kind of dog that she was.
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Kids are so good at putting things where they don't belong.
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"ba dabadaba mada!"
Re: "ba dabadaba mada!"
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I'd view your son's scrawls as his contribution to Spandau's shrine, a mural dedicated to the life and spirit of Spandau.
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"Now, your parents are good people, but your Daddy likes projects and things tend to go missing. So, if anything IMPORTANT is brought home, you make sure you bring it to me for safe-keeping!"
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"Mommmmmm! You don't understand! You don't know anything!!!"
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LOL!