Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 2, 1992 TAG: 9201010152
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
THIS IS ONE CHRISTMAS ME AND THE DOGS WILL REMEMBER
All right. If you insist, I'll tell you how it was with us during the Glorious Season just passed.Just remember. It's kind of hard to get into the spirit of the Glorious Season when you keep hearing this song about a grandmother who gets sauced up on Christmas Eve and gets wasted by a reindeer.
Just before Christmas, a cold, grim wind blew over our happy lives, as we used to say in Radford.
We had to send my dog Millie in for surgery.
No, dummy. Not that kind of surgery.
It was the kind in which various suspicious growths are removed and sent to a pathologist. OK. So you think it's funny that dogs have pathologists. You wanna make something out of it? Meet me in the parking lot after work.
The growths were benign and we were glad, although we had severely abused the credit card.
Millie had her fur shaved off in various places. Shaved right down to the skin.
You never think of a dog having skin until they shave the fur off.
Believe me, Milton. It's under there.
We didn't laugh at her, and our dog Skeeter didn't either.
He has had complications with his eye surgery and is still wearing this cone-shaped protective device around his head.
Talk about laughing, I have reason to believe that people have come from miles around to sneak a look at him in the back yard.
If I were sure of this, I'd start charging admission to offset the cost of his surgery.
There is a great truth here. It is: He who has two dogs in surgery before Christmas should have his head examined.
There were bright spots, however.
The Redskins didn't lose a game during Christmas week. They didn't have to play anybody.
I got this great karate-type robe, with a monogram on it. It has these neat wide sleeves.
It is a double-large, and I keep catching the sleeves on the kitchen chairs, but it is magnificent.
It is white and, as many of you know, modern science has not yet invented a bathrobe of any color that is resistant to mustard stains.
Nor has the clothing industry invented a mustard-colored bathrobe.
I seem to have a spaghetti sauce stain on it, although it is not my practice to wear it to supper. And we've been too busy eating leftovers to have spaghetti.
No. It is not a Bloody Mary stain.
I'll say one thing, though: Anybody who has been through a Christmas like that deserves a Bloody Mary. Or two.