I Really Have To Go!
Since I’ve moved into the new house, my dog Mojo spends a lot more time indoors than he used to. This is because my ex-wife is a dog-hater who used to stomp on his tail while he was sleeping. Or she didn’t like dog hair inside the house. I forget which. The point is, Mojo now growls at anyone who weighs more than 350 pounds.
Ha ha! Just joking! My ex-wife does not weigh 350 pounds. I’m just having a little fun with her because I know she still reads my site, probably because she’s afraid I’m going to go thermonuclear on her ass and post those “special, personal videos” I have stored on the old hard drives in my office. For the record, releasing those videos would be wrong and I would never do that, at least not until I finish digitally remastering them in HD 3D IMAX technology with Dolby Surround Sound. (I’m currently working with Paramount on a distribution deal.)
Where was I? Oh yes, my dog Mojo. Now that he has access to the house whenever I’m home, I get an up close look at his home life and what it consists of. It is surprisingly varied. Most of the time, of course, he’s sleeping. When he’s not, he’s engaged in any number of healthy canine activities such as dozing, snoozing, napping, taking a siesta, catching 40 winks, or even catnapping if he’s feeling up to it. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect him of having a secret heroin habit.
If he ever does find himself awake, he’ll sometimes launch into Maximum Play Mode. He’ll drop to the ground with his paws extended, ass high in the air, and begin to run laps around the house, jumping over every single step on the staircase, cutting a hard right into the kitchen, frantically trying to skid to a stop on the linoleum before slamming into the door to the garage head first. All this because I turned my head slightly which he misinterpreted as Time To Play! Five minutes later, he’ll be snoring loudly.
Sometimes, he’ll stand still and stare at the front door for long periods of time. I used to think that he heard a noise and is expecting someone to show up at the door, but it has happened often enough that I now know that this is nothing more than his own, doggy version of daydreaming. “Maybe a person will come to the door and bring me steak! Or a cat to play with/eat! Or maybe a bad guy will show up and Master will Need Protecting!” He’s so fixated on the door that an actual bad guy could walk in the back door, eating a steak while petting his pet cat, and Mojo would never know about it.
Derrr… Must protect master!
The remainder of his time is spent reminding me, his Pet Human, that he is a living organism, and occasionally needs to go to the bathroom. He accomplishes this by walking up to me and putting his head in my lap.
Me: Hey, there buddy! How’s my Mojo doing? Just saying hi?
Mojo: (You moron. How many times do we need to go through this? Every few hours, I need to go outside to pee.)
Me: You’re a good dog, aren’t you?
Mojo: (Seriously, how fucking hard can it be to figure this out? I come and get you every time I need to go. I haven’t had a single accident in this house, but I’m starting to think that maybe a big ole dump on the kitchen table is the only way to get through to you.)
Me: Oh… Hey, do you need to go outside Mojo?
Mojo: (Finally. Jesus, somebody get this guy a Snausage.)
Yesterday, as I let him out during a break in the Super Bowl, I started thinking about how Mojo effectively has to ask my permission to go to the bathroom. It’s kind of degrading, now that I think about it. “No! You may not exercise your bodily functions until it is convenient for me to allow it to happen!”
Then I realized that we all do this with our kids. My kids will go all day without using the bathroom, but the second you get within seven nautical miles of a restaurant, all of a sudden it’s like Niagara Falls in their pants. My daughter was the worst at this. One time, eating at Sweet Tomatoes (a salad bar), she went to the bathroom seven times. Seven. So after a while, I started having to make judgment calls. I turned into a urinary version of Judge Wapner.
Son: But daddy, I really need to go!
Me: You went five minutes ago.
Son: Oh yeah.
Me: I’m sorry, I’m going to have to rule in favor of the defendant on this.
Other Son: Daddy, I need to go pee!
Me: Ok, I’m holding both of you in contempt of court.
For the last time, there is a potty in your cell. Stop asking me if you can go to the fucking bathroom!
Just like that, I’ve become the arbiter of the bathroom. And it doesn’t get any better when they’ve got their bladders under control. They go through thirteen years of school where not only do you need someone else’s permission to take a leak, but you need fucking paperwork to prove it.
Hall monitor: Hold it, young man! Where are you going?
Student: The bathroom, it’s an emergency.
Hall monitor: Not without the proper form it’s not. Let’s see your bathroom pass.
Student: Here.
Hall monitor: Hmmm… Ok, this seems to be in order.
Student: Thanks. While you were reading that, I pissed myself.
Hall monitor: You’ll need to fill out a Form 64-U/1 for that. Simply scratch out “Stabbed a teacher”, and write in “Urinated on self” instead.
Hell, sometimes it doesn’t get better even when you’re an adult. There was a small business in my hometown that everyone knew to stay away from employment-wise. This was because the owner of the business was a complete tyrant who was so afraid that his workers would stop working for one second that he installed catwalks over the office so that people with clipboards could watch you at all times. Talking to an employee about something other than work? That’s a demerit. Taking a personal phone call? Demerit. Going to the bathroom? You get three bathroom breaks a day, any more than three and that’s a demerit. Seriously, I’m not joking. And if you got more than three demerits in a month, you were fired, you goldbricking asshole.
He also fired a guy for going to the hospital because his daughter had been rushed to the ER. Cause, you know, Business!
The strange thing is that we treat our excretory functions as shameful, because it sure doesn’t start that way. When my daughter first pooped in the potty, my ex-wife took a fucking picture of it which is pretty ridiculous, although to be fair, it’s not the kind of picture you can get at Glamour Shots. When our kids start using the potty, we watch them, read them books about the experience, give them “potty treats”, and generally act like they came up with the Theory of Relativity for dropping a goddamn deuce anywhere near the toilet. (Non-parents will probably not believe that last statement, but fellow parents know that at a certain age, your kid shitting on the bathroom floor is a victory. A disgusting, Pyrrhic victory, but a victory nonetheless.)
My guess is that after a certain amount of time, we can no longer take it. “Look, I’ve been cleaning up your piss and shit for four fucking years now. You’re old enough to do it yourself, so from now on, you’re on your own. I don’t want to see it, hear it, smell it, and I sure as hell am not going to clean it off the goddamn walls again. Close the fucking door and keep that shit to yourself.”
And just like that, our kids are scarred and they no longer feel free to let it fly in the middle of a parking lot, or at least they don’t until they attend college when drinking turns bodily functions into one of the funniest things in the world again. (A great friend of mine once came to visit me in college and promptly got caught by the cops peeing in my front yard, and not twenty four hours later I caught him peeing in my kitchen sink on top of the dirty dishes.)
All of which just goes to prove that… Oops. Hang on a second. Mojo is trying to tell me something.
What?
Aw, Mojo! My chihuahua was excellent about not peeing in the house for about fourteen years. Now she’s ancient and vindictive as hell. For example, my husband had just come home from an out of town job, after he greeted everyone and brought in his suitcases, he sat down, and the dog moseyed up to him and peed on his foot. While looking at him. She was like, ‘oh, you wanna go out of town without us? Well screw you.’
I had a beagle like that, only he didn’t wait to get old and crotchety. Once he showed his displeasure with a pending move by shitting in a open moving box (filled with possessions, of course).
My cat Scout acts like his shixx is a faulking work of art, or pagan temple to the Feline Gods.
He always takes a dump on the linoleum right in front of the toilet, sometimes he spaces the turds so that the offering makes little monuments that look like Stonehenge. Sometimes he takes a dump and then roots through the trash can for rubber bands, pieces of plastic, tissue, dental floss, which he then drags to the poop and fashions into the “sculpture”.
Anthropomorphize that pet lovers. I already have. There may be pictures.
Yeah, I’m done with cats. I was forced to own cats against my will, and those fuckers couldn’t hit the litter box if you nailed it to their asses, which now that I think about it, I should have tried.
When we lived in Chicago I’d take The Wump out in the morning before work and he’d just stare at me like I was Gods gift to dogs. Then I’d take him inside and he’d pee on the floor immediately.
Jerk….
You mean you’re not God’s gift to dogs?
I know what that’s like (the indoor peeing part, not the God part). I had a dog who would look outside when it was raining, look up at me, then let it fly right there in the doorway. “You want me to pee out there? No thanks. (psssssss….)
I AM Gods gift to dogs. I kissed my dogs as much as I kiss my children. Wumpy liked it. Ok so I’m Gods gift to The Wump.
Put it on my headstone.
Little known fact : Once you are granted entrance into the Dogs On Drugs Commenter Hall of Fame, you become immortal.
That’s sweet that Mojo puts his head in your lap as a pee signal. My dog sits by the door with a plaintive look on her face. She, too, does that staring at the wall thing, presumably to de-stress after a hard day of napping and lolling about.
Age incontinenece reared its head last year (for her). Collecting a pee sample to rule out kidney disease was an adventure. She did not want to co-operate and would give me a dirty look, then drop her butt so close to the ground that it was impossible to get a container under there. After weeks of chasing after her, I finally got the sample when she peed on a plant and I caught the runoff. Bitch.
He just came and got me ten minutes ago. I let him out and stood on the patio while he went. He peed for a solid 60 seconds. I couldn’t believe how much he had in there. It was like the clown car of peeing.
Lordy lordy, you do turn a good descriptive phrase.
Boom, long time Dogs. Hows it been?
I have never had to potty train a dog or child in my life. Living the dream
FYI: Deep Purple are touring Australia. I thought about buying tickets but then saw Journey was supporting. NOPE!
Rusty’s back! How’s it goin’, mate?
Holy shit, Journey found Australia? I thought the whole reason you guys were so far away was to avoid them!
(Looks up ticket prices.) Wow. Yeah, I wouldn’t be paying those prices.
Yeah now that Journey know where we are, there’s no point staying in this island prison paradise
Australia: started off like Escape from New York, but now with more pussy rock.
I’ve been busy, the day job can go hide and fuck itself, but overall its been good.
I see you’ve been through some stuff
You might say that.
I once made a cat shit itself by screeching at it, because my friend screeched first while we were trying to figure out if the thing we were looking at in the dark was a cat. I think we may have drank too many Capios or something.
“I once made a cat shit itself”
I sincerely hope you put this on your resumé.