Last Minute Mike

Late on the Thursday afternoon before the Friday he leaves for New York City, my friend Michael searches his soul once more and finally decides that I have made a valid point and he should board the dogs.  In typical Michael fashion, it never occurs to him that for the kennel this might be late notice or that the logistics of getting four wild animals to boarding and him on a plane – all before noon, no less – might be a nightmare as well as my personal undoing.  On a good day, the man barely functions before 10am.

I call the kennel and make the arrangements but then he goes into equivocation mode.  The dogs will be lonely.  The dogs won’t understand.  The dogs won’t forgive him.  He can’t stand the idea of them in cages or not being fed cheeseburgers or mcnuggets for supper.  He’s afraid this whole idea will scar them for life.

Patiently I remind him that they are dogs.  They will be fed, sheltered, well cared for, watched over and played with.  They will not blame him.  They will not report him.  They will not be abused or die from sheer misery.  They will not even starve for lack of ice cream.

We go round and round until he tells me that it’s all too stressful and maybe he just shouldn’t go.

Then don’t go, I tell him. 

He fires back that it’s my fault because I’m not willing to take his money and tend to them.

I remind him that I have seven animals of my own and – forgive me for saying so – a life of my own and first of all I don’t enjoy making four trips a day (one as early as 7, one as late as midnight) or cleaning up dogshit or not being able to sleep in or go to bed late.  And second of all, though I love them as if they my own, they’re not and besides has he forgotten that he promised me twice before to make arrangements before his next trip.

As expected, he sulks.

Morning comes and the real fun begins.  He’s still in his jockeys and hasn’t showered or packed by the time I arrive.  His prescription eye drops haven’t been delivered, he can’t find his blue blazer, the littlest dog is vomiting, he’s unhappy with his eyebrows (he had them tattooed the last time he was in New York) and he’s certain we’ll get lost on the way to the boarding place.  And it’s raining.

I call the pharmacy to discover they’re out of the eye drops.  I call the New York hotel and get the name and number of the nearest pharmacy and make arrangements for the prescription to be transferred.

And find his blue blazer.

And  feed the littlest dog a half teaspoon of Pepto Bismol.

And call the kennel and get directions.

There’s nothing I can do about the eye brow situation or the approaching hurricane.

The kennel is in the country and by that I mean IN THE COUNTRY AND AS FAR AWAY FROM CIVILIZATION AS YOU CAN GET WITHOUT ENDING UP IN TEXAS.   We get reasonably close but there are no signs and we have to call.  We end up on a barely one lane, rutted dirt road that winds and twists its way deeper and deeper into the woods and reminds us both of a scene from “Deliverance”.  The only reason we arrive at all is that there’s no place to turn a Chevy Suburban around and if looks could kill, I suspect I’d already be dead and left in one of the ditches.  The kennel folks, sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes on their front porch, are as country as they come, just one big family of hillbillies who love dogs.  They descend on the Suburban in their overalls and rubber boots and baseball caps, leashes in hand. 

Oh, dear God, Michael whispers in desperation, We’ll never get out alive.

You watch too much television, I tell him, It’s going to be fine.

The dogs are led away, the two big ones trot eagerly off and the two little ones are hand carried, and Michael steps out in his linen Armani trousers and Gucci shoes.  I’m choking from trying not to laugh.

Twenty minutes later we’re headed for the airport.  I leave him and somehow manage to navigate the Suburban home in the rain, struggling to reach the pedals and wondering at every turn if the back end will turn with me.

Never think that everyday life can’t be an adventure.