Now for Some­thing Com­pletely Dif­fer­ent — © Copy­right 2012 by William Beem

Now for Some­thing Com­pletely Different

I’m in the midst of a bad evening. Things haven’t gone as planned, so I’m going to pre­tend that I’m some­where else right now. I’m going to pre­tend that I’m not in a house with a puppy that just jumped up to my kitchen counter and knocked over a ceramic bowl so it shat­tered on the floor. I’m going to pre­tend that this same puppy didn’t find my iPhone and con­tin­u­ously slam it on the floor three times before I could get into the other room to retrieve it. I’m also going to pre­tend that he’s not whim­per­ing loudly right now because I put him in his crate to save my san­ity and pro­tect the things in my house.

I know this will pass. My older dog, who seems so calm and obe­di­ent in com­par­i­son, used to eat my walls. Seri­ously. He ate through the din­ing room wall until he hit the cin­der blocks one evening. That’s what hap­pens when I get too involved on the com­puter and for­get that there’s a rav­en­ous puppy on the prowl. He ate other walls, but that par­tic­u­lar hole would have been large enough for him to escape to free­dom had he not been slowed down by the cin­der blocks. Don’t think that he wasn’t try­ing to eat through that part of the wall, either. When I brought him home, he was eat­ing the brick on my fire­place. I have a photo of it.

So now he’s seven and the new puppy is putting me through his own brand of hell. When I saw him chew­ing on the fire­place bricks, I had a hor­ri­ble flash­back. So far, he hasn’t tried to eat my walls. My shoes, my pants, and my iPhone have all been chewed up, but not the walls — yet.

So it’s time now for some­thing com­pletely dif­fer­ent. I processed this photo as a kind of escape from the ten­sion and pres­sure of own­ing a labrador retriever puppy with far too much energy and far too lit­tle dis­ci­pline. Peo­ple may think he’s cute, but I know bet­ter. He’s a mon­ster with fangs and claws. He’s a furry white ball from Hell. Yet tomor­row morn­ing I’ll wake up with him crawl­ing in my bed and lick­ing my face. Damn dog.