Make Way!

What follows may be considered indelicate in some quarters, almost like some of the Ole-Lena jokes, such as:

When Ole and Lena got married, they drove to Minneapolis for their honeymoon. En route, Ole put his hand on Lena’s knee and she blushed and said, “Ole, we are married now, you can go farther than that.” So he drove to Duluth.


There is a saying I’m sure you’ve heard, “Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas,” but have you ever considered how the dogs may feel about the situation? My dog Molly follows me everywhere about the house, and if I happen to take a nap during the day, she hops up on the bed also, plopping her muscular 60 pound, 104°F. body snugly up against mine. I don’t attempt to stop this because it is as good as having a sturdy, furry hot pad that relieves the pain of the arthritis that goes all the way down the spine and is present even in the body’s prone position.

Here comes the indelicate part, so don’t read any farther, like going to Duluth. (I was in Duluth once and what I remember about it was there was a lot of water on one side of the road, called Lake Superior, and a hill on the other side, and it might be a lot like being between a rock and a hard place, but enough about Duluth…)

…our digestive system being what it is, fermentation by definition causes some gas, and gas, well, it rises, or escapes through the line of least resistance, or it is expelled, like those burning oil field flares. You know what is coming…it is usually accompanied by the noise of explosion or release, which may vary from a quiet sneaky sound, hardly discernable, identified in some quarters as breaking wind, or an explosion equivalent to detonation of a formidable amount of TNT, enough to cause considerable damage to the Hoover Dam.

Getting back to how dogs feel about lying down with masters:

“Lie down with masters, get outta there when the bombardment starts…there are no atheists in foxholes…don’t stick around for whatever Act II has in store.”

So, here’s the picture: I’m napping, dreaming of looking like Penelope Cruz.
Molly is napping, dreaming of chasing rabbits.

The indelicate episode happens, produced by the human condition. Immediately, not a nanosecond later, Molly jumps straight up in the air, coming down on all fours, five feet from the bed, wondering what happened? Hackles raised, all instincts en guard, looking around to see what is gaining on her, and ready to man the barricades as it were.

I can’t help but laugh. Who cares that any resemblance to Penelope Cruz breaks down to we are both the same gender and that is where it stops? Who cares that you just lost a bundle on the sale of some real estate? Who cares that your chances of seeing the winter solstice in the year 2012 is an improbable dream?

Your dog still has perfect reflexes, at least for the moment. And if you read this far, you may as well have made that trip to Duluth…