Conversations (Well, an adventure this time) with My Dog – 5

“Seriously, put out the cigar, Dog. We can’t put this off any longer!” I stood looking
down at my 10 year old dappled brown Dachshund, with my hands on my hips, as the sun
was casting purple light on the back yard leaves which still hung on for dear life in the
waning fall season.

Dog harrumphed. “I don’t know why I gotta help you with this! It’s a nice night; I
wouldn’t mind spending it out here like we always do.”

I drew a deep breath and exhaled, then grabbed the cigar from his mouth. “Nope…we
gotta do this!” I stubbed the cigar out in the gallon planter that we used as an ashtray.
(Shhh! No telling the Mrs. about this!)

“I oughta tell the Mrs. about you putting my cigar out in her flower planter.” Dog’s right
back paw scratched behind his ear. “Aaaah…that’s better.”

I sighed heavily. “Sometime this century, perhaps, we can actually get to it?”

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Dog looked up. “Hold your horses!!! I’m coming. But why do I have to help you do
this?”

“Because you’re a dog. You find stuff.”

Dog arched his eyebrows. “But we’re going to look for a book! How am I going to help
you look for a book? Do you have a page ripped out of it that you are going to give to me
to smell, and I go searching with my nose to the ground sniffing for the scent? Are you
serious? This isn’t Hollywood, my man. I’m not Lassie, and we aren’t searching for
Timmy.”

Shaking my head, “No, it isn’t Hollywood, and no I don’t expect you to pick up the scent
from a ripped page. But you do have a pair of sharp eyes, and you ARE low to the
ground. You can look under things, and there’s a lot of things to look under.”

“Where we looking again?”

”We are looking in the youngest son’s room. The one that’s away in college.”

Dog look startled. “The one with the room that expands to infinity to hold an endless
supply of life’s little treasures that probably should have been thrown out yesteryear?
The room that looks scary because who knows how many goblins now reside in the inner
bowels of the place? The room with a stack of clothes in every corner, probably hiding a
nice family of mice with very large teeth or something? That room? The Pit of Endless
Corners and Last Year’s Mess and hidden things that are likely to jump out at me?”

Nodding, and grimacing, I confirmed that this was the room. “It’s important, Dog. I
promised a friend of mine we would find this book to help her daughter. That book is in
that room.”

“You’re a sucker, dude.”

I considered the statement. “I’ll give you a sucker if you help.”

Dog cocked his head, ears electing to be fully upright. “A bribe, eh? A silly no-benefit-
at-human-health candy treat? Hey…won’t that rot my teeth?”

“It will in fact rot your teeth. So how about a Scooby snack?”

Canine eyes rolled. “Look, let’s just go get this done. I’d rather get my nose stuck in
some smelly sock that’s moldered for a year than hear more of your corny yammering.”

As he hopped down from the chair I turned to the porch door and we walked in, across
the living room, and down the steps to the basement. “Going into The Room, honey” I
told my wife. She responded with something about a trail of bread crumbs. I shrugged
and at the bottom I flipped the switch to the hallway leading to ‘the room’. Although I

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put air quote marks around the phrase “the room”, it is in fact a room. It’s just that it
hasn’t been cleaned since Wellington stopped Napoleon at Waterloo, so the fact that this
structure has a floor and walls is as much urban myth as it is verified archaeology. I
should have looked into getting the blueprints before this venture, but time was of that
old fabled saying, the essence.

We reached the threshold of the room. I turned to say something to Dog and was taken
aback. He was wearing his football helmet and shoulder pads, and had an unlit cigar in
his mouth.

He returned my stare more balefully than I had stared at him. “What?”

“Why are you wearing all that? And what’s with the cigar?”

”All that, as you put it, is protective gear. We don’t know what inhabits this cave
anymore. Nor can you guarantee that any of these sundry items arrayed in defensive
position against us – clothes, other books, Nintendo games - won’t tumble and fall on me.
Therefore, good sir, I must protect my noggin if I am to play Watson to your Sherlock.”

“…and the cigar?”

He nodded. “Well, I’ve been watching reruns of the A-Team during the day…the
original series…and I sorta admire how the cigar made George Peppard look tough and in
control.”

“Seriously? There’s so much wrong with your head, Dog. Is that helmet on too tight?
Maybe it’s restricting the flow of oxygen to your brain.”

Dog snorted. “All very fine for you with your noggin way up there out of harm’s way,
but down here we four-leggers need to take some precautions!”

Shrugging, I flipped the light switch to the room. And then I flipped it again. And again.
Nothing happened.

Dog looked up. “You getting enough oxygen up there? You sure you know how to
operate one of them light switches?”

”Sometimes, Dog…” I didn’t bother to look down, “your humor does not help.” I tried
the switch again. And again.

Snorting, Dog muttered, “It certainly didn’t help you figure out that light switch. Okay,
well, we tried looking for the book. We’ll have to wait until the sun comes up. Let’s call
it a night and light this cigar up, shall we?”

”Dog! We are not giving up this quickly! I promised my friend!” I looked around the
room, through the gloom. “Hey, there’s a flashlight up on that shelf, up there.” I tried

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reaching but it was a bit out of my reach.

Dog muttered, “Well, shoot, you can’t reach the flashlight. Okay, well, we tried. Let’s
call it a night.”

“Nope.” I reached down for dog. “I’ll put you on my shoulders and you reach up there.
Okay?” I quickly had him on my shoulders although his back feet threatened to skitter
off but they held and I maneuvered closer to the shelf. I heard Dog’s paws moving stuff
around. “You got it?”

“Yep, got it!”

I moved backwards, stumbling a tad over something on the floor. This rocked Dog a bit
on my shoulders and the flashlight dropped from his paws. “OW! DOG! What did you
do?” The flashlight bounced off my head to the floor.

Defensively dog yelled down, ”Hey, it’s not my fault!!! I lack those handy opposable
thumbs you geniuses have, you know? Anyhow, now who’s the idiot without the
protective head gear on? Hmmm? Exactly! Now put me down. You make me
nervous…if there’s any more excitement I can’t promise I can control my bladder much
longer. You know how I hate heights, after all.”

I quickly put him down and retrieved the flashlight from the floor. I flicked the switch on
the flashlight to ‘on’ and swept the beam around the room and …well, you could say the
light illuminated evidence that at one time a small tribe had lived in the room.

“I think this is larger than the municipal dump, Sir.” Dog sniffed the air. “However…I
smell the book! I smell it!”

”Really?!?!” I looked at Dog.

He looked back with disdain. “Seriously? You thought I smelt the book? Good lord.
What am I dealing with?”

A rustle from inside the cave-room stopped our conversation. I swung the beam toward
the noise in time to see a pile of clothes move from the corner to the middle of the room,
seemingly on its own. “Dog…did you see that?” I whispered.

”Between you and me, can we please just agree we gave it a good effort and come back
tomorrow?” Dog seemed to be pleading.

I answered him by pulling him along by the shoulder pads with me as we went towards
the clothes. The clothes rustled as we got very close and then seemed to speak. “Who
wishes to pass the Legend of the Forgotten but not Discarded Guardian Outdated
Clothespile?”

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Dog and I looked at each other, each of us nodding with our heads toward the other and
then the talking pile of clothes, indicating that the other should speak for us to the talking
clothes pile. Then we shrugged our shoulders, held out our hands/front paws and did a
quick “rock/paper/scissors”. I lost. Dog scurried behind me, peering between my ankles.
I drew a deep breath. “It is I, the owner of the house within which this wondrous cave
has developed.”

The Clothes responded. “Well-met, owner. I have heard your footsteps for ages. What
is your purpose?”

”We seek a book, a book of healing, a book of miracles, for a friend’s daughter.”

The clothes shifted slightly in the dire air. “Your purpose is noble, and the book’s
location in known to us. However, you must consent to a test of spirit and character. Do
you give such consent, and does your Squire agree to abide by the results? For your fate
shall be his!” I looked down, then backwards and between my legs at Dog, who was
shivering between my ankles. He shook his head ‘no’. I looked back at the Clothespile.
“He agrees that his fate is bound with mine.”

Nodding (somehow) the Clothes queried me with a sage voice as the breeze blew my
hair. (If I want the wind blowing my hair so I look heroic, so be it! – ed.) The Clothes
boomed then, “You must answer three questions! Answer the three questions and you
can cross the Deathly Span of Dirty Room safely, but if you fail in your answers, you
shall fall prey to the Unseen Hazard on the Floor and stub your toe! Doth thee
understand?”

”So be my fate! Ask your questions!” I stood ready.

”The first of my five questions…”

”…three questions. You said three questions!” I corrected the clothes pile.

“Ahhh, er…harrumph. Yes, yes, yes…answer me these questions three, 'ere the other
side of this dirty room you see! What is your name?”

“My name is Sir Steve of Normal.”

“What is your quest?”

“As I have stated, we seek a book of healing. You know, by the way, that you are
quoting a Monty Python movie, and my honor requires me to inform you that I have seen
this movie and hence know the right answers to these questions three which you proffer.”

There was a pause, and then the question three was asked. “Spoken sooth, nonetheless,
what is the velocity of a falling soda pop can as it falls from a shelf that you might
accidentally knock it off of?”

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I paused. “Is the can ladened with its soda, still?”

The Clothespile responded, “I don’t know….auuggghhhhhh!!!!” And with that, the

clothes pile became less legend and more a simple pile of clothes to maneuver around. I
swung the flashlight beam around the room and discovered that where the clothes had
been the book now lay, in a shaft of moonlight coming through the half-window.

”DOG! Grab the book, QUICK!” Dog barked and leapt over countless T-shirts laying
on the floor, their empty sleeves lunging at his little Dachshund legs. Lickety-split, as
they used to say, he was back, book in mouth and heading for the door. I followed
quickly, stepping backwards and using the flashlight beam to ward off any attempt from
some other item in the room to follow us. Once I reached the threshold of the room we
raced up the stairs and didn’t stop until we were in the middle of the living room, panting,
stooped over and resting our hands on our knees, which was quite a feat for Dog as his
knees are naturally bent backwards, dog-fashion.

The Mrs. looked up from her paperwork. “I see you found the book. Was it in the corner
under that one clothes pile? That was a fairly easy task now, wasn’t it?”

Dog and I looked over at her, and then without saying a word went to the back porch.

Lighting our cigars and sharing a stolen glance at each other we shared a secret
communication without speaking: Sometimes females don’t understand the adventures
of males at all! After a while, Dog pulled a blanket around him to ward off the chill of
the falling night air, as well as to hide himself from further embarrassment in front of the
Mrs. “Told you we should have waited until morning,” he said.

11-6-2010
The Jotter