The dogs were growing restive as I allowed the alarm to snooze again. They had come into the bedroom when they heard the initial ringing; now they were trying out different combinations of mute appeals, all presumably based on a need for relief. The two pit-bull-mix dogs belong to my daughter and were overnight visitors to my apartment while she partied with the Dixie Chicks. The evening before, the three of us had tangled down to The Coal Yard Coffee House to listen to jazz and have an Ash & Elm cider (or two). Marley and Vada were welcomed by all (with the possible exception of Rita Spalding’s tiny canine, who took one look at my brutes and started challenging them) and we later tangled home. I say “tangled” because two dogs wearing two harnesses attached to two leashes makes for a tangled walk. (It takes three to tangle…)
On this morning, Marley and Vada had reached a level of desperation that showed in their prompt business-work in the yard behind my apartment building. Once back inside, I addressed my morning ablutions, dressed and hooked up the harnesses for my morning walk to 10 Johnson Avenue. I had checked the weather through the app on my phone, which had shown me, at 7:30 a.m., a bright yellow sun peeking from behind a fluffy mound of clouds, with a chance of sprinkly some hours away. We three skipped rope to Johnson Avenue, and I drank my Americano and ate my blueberry muffin while the mutts munched on the free treats provided by the shop. I tied their leashes to an awning support and brought a chair close enough so that they were within touching distance of me while I read The Weekly View. When it started to rain, at about 8:10, I was unconcerned. A small squall, I thought; I can wait this out. As the squall got less small and brought more rain, the dogs lobbied for a better-protected environment. About 8:15 am, the tornado sirens started to scream and as I moved papers, cups, messenger bag, muffin plate and dogs to another table, Marley tried to muscle her way into the shop: “I think we’re supposed to be inside and under something,” she might have been saying. But we stayed outside, and then, the sky tipped over and poured out a deluge. This is going to be a long ride, I thought.
The rain let up at about 8:40 and I gathered the dogs for a brisk walk back. Vada pulled forward while Marley tugged backward and though the rain had slowed to a sprinkle, the wind shook the sodden trees and wet the man and his two dogs. Which would have been fine had not Mother Nature — contemptuous of the puny beings who litter the surface of Earth — decided to “tornado-wind” Clem and the canines. The deluge we had escaped while under 10 Johnson’s canopy returned with a vengeance and now — now — the two dogs were pulling in unison, like sled dogs dragging “sled-me.” Muscular Marley and wiry Vada stopped every four feet to try to shake off the coating of rain, but I only heard this because my glasses had been rendered useless by the ceaseless rain, and I imagined the dogs’ cries: “Dude! This is NOT FUN!”
A clean, dry dog is a most beautiful animal and a dirty, wet dog is most noisome. And despite having toweled off the two dogs, my small apartment still reeks of wet dog. I wonder if I will stink on my next morning walk. Is that my daughter’s footsteps…?