A little background will help. If you don’t see the whole picture, you might feel I’m not being reasonable. Once you see the whole picture, there’s still a chance you’ll feel I’m not being reasonable.
Reason, like so many things, is overrated.
Every Saturday morning, I make myself French toast and a cup of English Breakfast tea. It’s the highlight of the weekend. Before I start this weekly breakfast ritual, I perform another one. A daily ritual. I go downstairs and give my dog a treat. Day in and day out. Even if I’m in a bad mood and even on mornings following some doggy transgression the previous evening.
Every. Morning. Like clockwork.
So on Saturday mornings, it’s a treat for the dog and then the breakfast ritual.
The cornerstone of the breakfast ritual being the four songs I listen to. They are every bit as important as the eggs and bread. Four John Denver songs: “Calypso,” “Rocky Mountain High,” “Take Me Home Country Roads” and “Thank God I’m a Country Boy.”
I have the actual preparation of the French toast and cup of tea down to a science. Swiss watchmakers would look on in envy as I load the last piece of French toast onto the plate as the final chorus of “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” winds down. I imagine watching me beat eggs and add sugar to my tea would be akin to watching Olga Smirnova dance a ballet around her kitchen. Grace in motion.
Ok. I think the background has been established. I can now move on to the point of this.
I had sort of noticed this a few times in the past, but I was happy to write it off as a coincidence. You know what I mean; facing a hard truth is sometimes difficult, so people tend not to see what they don’t want to see.
But this morning, I paid attention, and I saw.
And my heart broke.
Early in the French toast-making process, as “Calypso” started getting down to brass tacks, I looked over at my dog. Then came the chorus. A chorus that involves a little yodeling.
So I began, as I’d done countless times before, a full-throated yodel.
My dog left the kitchen.
Let me repeat that. The dog, who I have spent countless hours walking and cleaning up after and giving treats to, turned and walked away from me.
Over a little yodeling.
Man’s best friend, my ass!
She’d been doing it every damn week. Abandoning me when things got tough. I suddenly had flashbacks, like they do in all those murder- mystery movies, of seeing her stand up and walk out every time I started yodel-oh-ee-deeing.
Et tu, Daisy?
I don’t know what the Saturday breakfast/dog landscape is going to look like next week. Would I want my post delivered by a mailman who lived by the credo “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. Just yodeling. Yodeling stays them”?
I do know that if that mailman is expecting belly rubs the next time I see him, he’s in for a rude awaking.
Do I sometimes slap my knee and pretend I’m wearing an invisible cowboy hat when I sing along to “Thank God I’m a Country Boy?” Yes. Yes, I do. I’m an imperfect creature.
But you know who has never seen that show?
My own dog! My pal. My best friend.
She bails at the first yodel-oh-ee-dee.
I realize I promised a point to all this so here it is: I look adorable when I’m slapping my knee and pretending to wear an invisible cowboy hat.
Your loss, dog.