The Curious Incident Of The Dog And The Daytime (And Assorted Stories)
First, this is the post that I am the most proud of, and, of course, it is not here. Which makes no sense, but, you know.
Today is Tuesday, and all of you brilliant and gorgeous readers (wait–have you lost weight? Your looks hot as hell!) readers know what that means: Beaver Talk With Aunt Becky, over at Toy With Me.
Thank you to anyone who has come by to support me over there. I’m still getting my sea legs and feeling a bit wobbly. All of your comments are cherished and loved and crocheted into tiny wee plaques that I hang onto my walls. Or maybe just really, really appreciated.
For anyone who–understandably–does not want to hear me talk about my lady bits, I am rewriting a (probably) unread old post from the vaults, written shortly after Alex was born, and airing it below.
—————-
I weighed myself this week.
This is kind of a masochistic big deal, considering that I had no earthly idea what kind of poundage I put on with this crotch parasite. After I continued gaining weight WHILE BARFING MY BRAINS OUT, I decided that maybe I just didn’t need to know just how efficient my metabolism could be.
Turns out, you don’t have to look when you get weighed in.
I mean, I gained a bunch with my first and all, but I ate garbage nonstop, so yeah, of course I got fat. Well, this time, I did not. And yet I STILL got fat. I feel loftily sure that I would kick some major ass in a famine, but now, my dimpled white ass needs some major work.
Let’s just say that I have my work cut out for me.
Operation Remove My Fat Ass has begun.
So after I got my good cry out, I decided to get productive and go on a walk as I have not been cleared to lift anything heavier than the baby, a walk would be nice and low impact.
I bundled Cletus the Former Fetus (ed note: Alex) up into my fancy stroller, threw my iPod over my ears to drown out his indignant “I can’t believe you’re not holding me to your breast Slave Woman! Where is my nipple? It’s not in my mouth where it belongs, you bitch!” screams, and began to enjoy the motherfucking scenery.
(as an aside, I can only imagine the horrible mother that my neighbors thought that I must be, letting my child cry like that while I grimly, determinedly walk on. I CLEARLY do not deserve to be a parent.)
As I rounded a corner, I saw the strangest thing. For the *second* time in my life.
There was a dog on a roof.
There was a (motherfucking) dog on the roof of a (motherfucking) house.
He just stood there, staring back at me as thought it was the most normal thing in the world for dogs everywhere to lounge about on tops of houses reaching two stories high.
Having had to run on no appreciable sleep for the past six weeks, I many had problems deciding how to react to the situation.
Do I call the dog? Do I keep walking? Do I want a tuna sandwich? Do I EVEN LIKE TUNA? Slowly but surely, my memory banks began to cross reference the situation: where had I seen this before? A whimsical romantically comedy? Possibly a dream I had when I was a kid? Do I even like tuna sandwiches?
And it dawned on me: several years ago, my neighbor called me outside to bear witness a dog sitting on the roof of a house across the street. A couple of us gathered out there, discussing the dog, who looked as befuddled as we were, unsure as to how it got up and as to how it was going to get back down again.
Somebody needed to do…something. If this was a made-for-TV-movie, a hot-as-hell fireman with twinkly green eyes would rescue the dog and maybe he and I would fall in love. And live happily ever after.
I offered to call the fire department, since my neighbors all seemed more interested in gawking and gaping than the poor pooch who was stuck up on the roof.
Figuring this was my shot at my one true love, I did. They directed me to animal control. Who directed me to the police. Who directed me to public works. Who told me to call the fire department.
I’m pretty sure they all looped to the same person, because I had the same fucking conversation. Either that or it was my own version of Groundhog Day:
Me: “Hi, my name is Becky Sherrick and I live here. My neighbor has a dog on his roof.”
Pick One (fire dept, animal control, police): “What?!?”
Aunt Becky: “I *said* that there is a dog on my neighbors roof. A big one.”
Public Service Official (incredulous): “You’re kidding me.”
PSO (to coworkers): “This lady is calling in a dog on a roof! Bwahahaha!”
Aunt Becky: “Why would I joke? I’m seriously afraid it’s going to jump.”
PSO (to coworkers): Now the dog is suicidal! Bwahahaha!
PSO: “Well, there’s nothing *we* can do about it. Try calling (choose one: fire dept, police, animal control, etc).”
(click)
Me:”That’s what (fire dept, police, animal..) said. oh NEVERMIND!”
Finally remembering that the public works in town have absolutely no idea what to do with a (motherfucking) dog on a (motherfucking) roof, I decided that the best course of action was one of complete inaction.
I just kept on walking, the dog and I eyeballing each other warily as Alex wailed for his breast, bitch.
And then, just like that, like a bolt of lighting out of the clear blue sky I remembered that I loathe tuna sandwiches.
—————–
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve come across lately?
This has very little to do with this actual post, but i have to say that you are my imaginary best friend. You say everything I want to say but don’t know how to put in to words. I laugh so hard when i read some of your posts that i have to keep from peeing myself. My “crotch parasite” is almost 6 months old and as a first time mom i was clueless, then i stumbled upon your blog (thanks reader) and no longer feel like i’m crazy for wanting to just put on my ipod and drown out the noise. Thanks for being you Aunt Becky!
You know, our dog used to get on the roof when we lived in another house. There was a window which overlooked the roof and our puppy, Pearl, would just get out the window and hang out on the roof. We had to finally keep that window shut. It was disconcerting. And funny. Not as funny as the time she made her way down to the local ball field where she decided to take part in a huge softball game going on. She got the ball and ran the bases. There was much cheering by the crowd! Oh Pearl! Now she’s a very dignified old lady but it’s nice to be reminded of what sorts of foolishness she got into as a young’un.
would you believe there is a Flickr group for that? Seriously… I just came across it yesterday! flickr.com/groups/roofdogs/
Just goes to show ya, there is a Flickr group for ANYTHING!
Also, could you link directly to your article when you give us your Tuesday links? I always spent WAY too much time looking for your article… because much as I lurve reading all of them, I really want to start with my Aunt Becky!!!
Our neighbor’s five year old was on their roof the other day. I went over to alert her parents to this fact, and was told “yeah, she likes it there.”
See, you can just walk on our roof. It’s ground level. My boys, the dog, the cats, even the Kubota have been on my roof. I always have to pause & remember other people’s roofs are high off the ground
Only you, my friend, would have this happen. Bwahahahahahaha
Never been here before, just had to say that I LOVED THIS POST! LOL!
LMAO. Fluids escaping from every orifice.
I did that quite a lot when my son was small. Just stick him in a buggy and walk. I’d often be singing on top of his screams, which sounds neglectful but would often make him shut up eventually. Maybe because my singing beat his wailing in the horrifying-sound stakes.
There’s a science experiment I should have done.
Well…personally I would have no problem with you talking about your lady bits here…. 🙂
Since your lady bits posts are NSFW, at least not at this office, I will simply sit back and cackle at this post. Fucking awesome.
I only like tuna if it has pickles and walnuts and maybe some raisins and dill and garlic salt and a little sour cream mixed in with the mayo and miracle whip (yes I use both). In other words, if it’s mostly other things and not tuna at all.
Ok the lady whose neighbor has a 5 yr old on the roof – their really nuts.
The rest of us should just believe that the dog is a figment of our imagination since no one else seems to care.
Cletus The Former Fetus ?!! Love that, love love love that. Also maybe we could never be friends because I love tuna sandwiches in the right moment.
Nah, not so unusual. There is a bar here (yes, you hear that right) and someone lives above the bar and their windows open out onto the roof. They don’t, though, have a yard, so I think they just leave the windows open and the dogs think it is the yard. What is far more disconcerting than their presence on the roof is when they shimmy down to hang out on the awning on TOP of the bar; I think I amight have to quit drinking (if I hadn’t already) if I looked up while walking out of the bar and saw a large german shepard just sort of staring down at me.
I like tuna.
I’m ashamed that I was initially so befuddled by this that I couldn’t even laugh! Seriously, though? Seriously?! Humm. . .
There are people who live near us who have a dog occasionally on their roof. The dog doesn’t seem concerned about it though. It always makes me double take.
I never looked at the scale when I was pregnant with the second. I told the nurses not to tell me the number and just let me know if it hit 200.
This summer, I saw a small child wandering in a circle drive in a very nice neighborhood near my office. The child was small enough that I was genuinely concerned for his safety- didn’t want him wandering out into the street. I pulled into the drive, and rang the doorbell while I tried to get the child’s attention without seeming as though I might grab him and run. After THREE doorbell rings and one railing on the door with my fist( I was seriously getting concerned at this point- what if his parent slipped in the shower and was knocked out cold? Or, insert macabre thought here____________) I was wondering, should I call the police? I can’t leave now, I’m offically involved!!! Finally, a child who was maybe 7 or 8 opened the door. I said, Hi, is this your little borther? Because at this point, who the fuck knows? The mother finally materializes, pulling on her robe. I said, Hi, this little guy was out close to the street, and I just didn’t want him to get too close to the road. She glared at me, took the kid’s hand, and closed the door in my face. I was so dumbfounded, and late for work by this time, so I got in my car and drove off. But I’ve thought about that bitch a lot since then and what I wish I would have said to her, after I kicked her door down.
When I was a teen we had a neighbor who’s lab spent most of his time on the roof. He woiuld use their back porch to jump up there.
Beautiful post. Had me laughing out loud. I don’t do that very often. You sucked me in. One of my very favorite books is “The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Nighttime.” I thought your post was going to be all literary. Well it was, but veered off in an unexpected direction.
Why can’t twinkly-eyed firemen be real, anyway? pfft.
Eh I say if the dog got on the roof he probably knows how to get off of it too lol.
How can you not like tuna sandwiches?!?
Oddest thing I have seen lately? The boob of another woman pressed up against my face. They got a new hair washer at the salon I go to. She is short and very busty.
Hmmmm, one of the houses the next street over had a blue toilet on the curb which the kids thought was hilarious. That was kind of weird. Oh, and Sunday night’s episode of Mad Men? There was a whole lot of weird to be seen there…
Co-worker’s dog (3yo yellow Lab) likes their roof. He learned how to sneak up the outside stairs to the deck then squeeze through to the lower roof to bark over the hedge at the neighbour’s cat. (He has NOT learned to retrace his steps to get down so has been banned.)
“I can only imagine the horrible mother that my neighbors thought that I must be, letting my child cry like that while I grimly, determinedly walk on. I CLEARLY do not deserve to be a parent”
I can relate~
My little Joey cried nonstop for the first three months. Sure he had a massive tumor growing along the base of his neck that I’m sure caused pain ONLY I did not know this at the time. . . .So, I would frequently put him in his stroller and go around the neighborhood pushing the screaming baby along all while trying to look as calm and sane as possible.
I’m sure that’s the strangest thing my neighbors have seen. . .me pushing screaming baby in stroller and looking like nothing is going on.
i’m sure there’s something really strange that i’ve come across lately, but it was so bizarre that my brain couldn’t process it. so, here’s one of the many memorable experiences from college (not too long ago).
the college i went to was just on the edge of a really poor part of town, so there were all kinds of different people wandering around outside our campus. we’d hang out in the backyard of the fraternity houses and have only a tall, long chain-link fence separating us from a bunch of hookers, homeless crazies and drug dealers. we often had the crazies stop and talk to us and once we even had a guy offer us his coat and watch for $20. i often watched the cars pass by and crossed my fingers that it wouldn’t be the car that opened fire on us.
there were also a lot of empty buildings, which only attracted more homeless people. i once saw a homeless man peeing in the doorway of an empty building next to a mcdonald’s, surrounded by a pack of like 10 stray dogs.
there was also a prosthetic-limb clinic across the street from our school. so we’d often see this one homeless man with one leg, in a wheelchair, pushing or pulling himself around with that one leg.
well, further down the street from school was a big, long street that had a lot of fast food places and gas stations and had all the exits to the highways and interstates. it was like the all-in-one street before you went on a trip. it was a busy street and also a very hilly road.
one time, i saw the one-legged homeless man pushing himself up the hill, backwards, with that one leg, in the middle of this huge road. like in the left turn lane. you know how gondola drivers use that stick to push themselves along? that’s what this man was doing with his one leg. only backwards up the hill.
my roommate and i figured that might be why he lost that first leg.
I came across caramel pumpkin popcorn. It was weird, and it was $8.00.
I didn’t take the risk.
Sweet-ass beaver button, btw.
Saw a guy set a stand-up bass on fire while playing it.
That was pretty sweet.
Other than that my life is pretty much a study in the bizarre.
This isn’t exactly weird, but it freaked me out. I was walking the dogs on Saturday and we came across THREE uncollared, unleashed, untagged dogs with no human being. Big dogs. They approached us and I basically came unglued. My new foster dog (Fuckface) got all crazy and was trying to attack them. One of the dogs started jumping on me. I don’t THINK they were mean, but I was so scared! I couldn’t get them to go away, so I flagged the next car I saw. The man got out and I asked if the could take me & the dogs home. Just then a lady drove by and said that the police had been called twice on the dogs already and that they lived at 408 Whatever Street, which was the street right by where we were. So the hero guy just walks the dogs back to their house, and I went on my merry way. I need pepper spray.
Our neighbor’s dog rides a skateboard. It’s pretty funny. OK, OK, the kids push her a couple feet while she stands there, looking stupid.
I live in a boring neighborhood.
Our neighbor’s kid likes to climb on top of the roof of their garage, and throw shit into my yard. I talked to the parents (TWT, they go outside to scream at each other so their kids can’t hear them, but scream at each other in front of my baby’s window, jerks.) about it, and they did nothing. The next time I caught him doing it, I went out and told him I was calling the police, and that he shouldn’t ever touch anything, not even the fence on my property again. Little fucker. I guess he got the point, (at least as far as leaving my house alone) because he started fucking with the other neighbor’s house after that, and broke out all of their brand new windows while they were gone one afternoon. The neighbor on the other side of that house is a cop, and saw the whole thing.
I was SO worried about the answer to the tuna question. Good to know!
Today? Today, I found my daughter had actually put her own cereal bowl in the sink and not left it on the table when done with it. Yes, I knelt down and gave a prayer of thanks, right that moment. In my books that’s right up there with the dog on the roof. Though not nearly as funny. 😉
at first, did you think, “oh fuck, i seriously need to get some sleep,” when you first saw a DOG on a ROOF?
the second time you saw a dog on a roof, did you wonder what kind of person sees dogs on roofs on a semi-regular basis?
the *next* time you see a dog on a roof (and, dearest aunt becky, we both know there will be a next time), instead of calling in “hey there’s a dog on the neighbor’s roof,” try, “um, some really hot women are having s-e-x and filming it on my neighbor’s roof.” likely, that will get you fire, ambulance, police, animal control, public works, parks & recreation, sanitation, etc..
My daughter’s stepdad (not my husband, the other one) carved her name in a pumpkin at the farm he works at when the pumpkin was green. And so now that it grew and turned orange, it got scarred into it. It’s freaky, but very cool. Who know you could do that?
What kind of dog was it?
hi! i enjoyed very much reading your posts. your about me section alone is hilarious!! i am a mother of 2 and i so get where you’re at!
i am also a business development marketing for an internet marketing firm and found your writing skills and your blog to be perfect for one of our clients. should you be interested, please do not hesitate to contact me at carol.bustos@keyscouts.com
looking forward to hearing from you!
thank you,
carol
Aunt Becky, you are someone who I could loan my “Three Martini Play Date” book to who’d actually not be offended. I tried to circulate it among some mommy-friends and they were horrified. We didn’t hang out much anymore.
My son just brought home a bookmark from school that says, “We succeed because our Savages read!” Seriously.
“I can’t believe you’re not holding me to your breast Slave Woman! Where is my nipple? It’s not in my mouth where it belongs, you bitch!” screams
You just summed up the first 6 months of my firstborn’s life…thank you for putting into words how it really FELT to be his mom. He is 7 now and last year he asked me what kind of baby he was…and I told him he was a very mean baby.
I’d say that the strangest thing I ever saw was a 70+ year old dude in a teeny tiny speedo, sunning himself on a recliner in his front yard. There is no governent agency to call for that.
We used to have a neighbor who had a black lab who was always on their roof. No idea how (or why) he got up there. I used to have a great dane who liked to sleep on our glass-topped patio table. I think he thought he was a lion, surveying the veldte or something.
Craziest thing I’ve seen lately was… oh! It wasn’t what I saw, but what I heard. My cats were harassing a toad and it made the weirdest screamy noise ever. It worked, too. The cats were so confused by the noise that it got away.
I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure I saw Macy Gray trying to do the cha-cha. I could have been tripping on my cold meds, but I swear I saw that painful shit right on my flat screen.
So.. regarding your most proudest post.. (the cat figurines are bad? damnit!) NICELY DONE. Now I know why – why #237 – I love you. You’re totally my husband… but .. like a chick, with a wicked sense of naughty humor (which, so does he, but it’s with eau de DUDE all over it) and you grew up to be brilliant despite, maybe because of, could be God’s grace, I mean.. hey, why not.. but You both just ARE. All freaking studies and reports aside, you’re both amazing parents who make me laugh. Every day.
As far as the dogs go… it’s because you live in the Chicago Metro Area.
You are fucking funny! Poor dog was probably suicidal because his owner tried to feed him a tuna sandwich.
Roof dogs are actually quite common in Mexico:
http://www.lifesherpa.com/magazine/thoughts/2007-04-baehr-roofdogs.htm
Perhaps your roof-dog-owning neighbor is Mexican?
ROFLMAO! I laughed so hard I almost dislodged my own crotch parasite off her precious boob, but no. Her grip on that is far too strong since she’s in the middle of her nap and won’t sleep without it. Hope the dog eventually worked out how to get down. I bet there was a cat involved.
Can’t say I’ve *seen* anything exceptionally weird lately, but I was in Sydney airport last week and heard one of those bizarre only-got-the-middle-of-the-conversation moments between passers-by:
Woman, quite earnest but cheerfully conversational, says: “There’s no easy way to tell your mother she smells so bad she makes you want to vomit, and you never want to see her again.”
Companion, sounding somewhat disinterested, as if the conversation were simply about tuna sandwiches: “Mm-hmm, nope.”
I almost followed them to hear the rest.
I just tagged you in my dead sexy post. Check it out!
Wait! Can someone PLEASE tell me how it is possible for that dog to get on the roof?!? I can’t think about anything else! Someone had to physically put him on the roof, RIGHT?!?
A weight has been lifted. I got the stink eye from my mother and everyone else who bothered to stick their nose in my pregnant business every time I called the fetus a parasite. Thank you.
I found a squirrel sitting in my living room and (after a phone call to the police and nervous laughter on my side and not nervous but almost hysterical laughter from the dispatcher) got a very new police officer who entered my home with a small cat carrier, a red blanket, and a stick, and told me he could not promise me anything….
I’ve never seen a dog on a roof, but when our dog was allowed indoors, he would climb onto our kitchen counters and piss on the toaster, the cake plate, the flower pot, etc. And now he lives outside.
I nearly snorted coffee out my nose when I read this story “now she thinks the dog is suicidal” ROTFL!!!
Aunt Becky you never fail to make me laugh.
xxx
[…] getting my sea legs and feeling a bit wobbly. All of your comments are cherished and loved and cr click for more var _wh = ((document.location.protocol=='https:') ? "https://sec1.woopra.com" : […]
Bloglines hasn’t updated your feed in over a week, so I’m just now reading this. I see others have been having a problem; I’ve resubscribed so let’s see how she goes. As for fat asses, mine reached earth-shattering proportions before I gave birth and is still the size of pluto’s moon (er, not moon). Since I am too poor to buy a whole new wardrobe, it looks like I’m going to have to actually, ugh, exercise.