THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 10, 1996 TAG: 9605090192
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: JO-ANN CLEGG
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
Charlie the Lhasa greeted me at the door with a growl when I came home the other evening.
``And what was that all about?'' I asked as I dropped my 20-pound brief case on the kitchen floor.
``Sorry,'' he said in his most derogatory tone, ``I didn't recognize you.
``I haven't seen you since three weeks ago last Tuesday. There is no food in this house. The kitchen floor is so dirty that there are six field mice mired in the muck and the last time you washed the blanket on my bed was Valentine's Day of 1993.''
``Taking your list from the top,'' I told him, ``there is plenty of food in the house, even if most of it is in bags with pictures of a guy named Dave on them. You're exaggerating the part about the mice. A few mice droppings, maybe, but no mice.
``The muck on the floor comes from your feet and the reason I haven't washed your blanket is because every time I do you make a fool of yourself sitting under the clothes line whining until it dries. I think you're just off on a one-dog pity party here.''
``Do you blame me?'' he sniveled. ``You go to work in the morning, you come home at night, you open up one of those bags from Dave whatchamacallit's place or nuke a couple of TV dinners, which - I might add - have no leftovers and then you go to bed. It's worse than what you did before you retired to stay home and keep me company.''
I decided to give him a little taste of reality.
``First of all,'' I told him, ``you hated it when I stayed home. You let me know in no uncertain terms that I interfered with your busy schedule.''
``Yeah, but I really didn't mean it,'' he whined.
``If you didn't mean it, how come you kept handing me my brief case and leading me to the door every morning?'' I asked.
``I was just kidding,'' he snarled.
I ignored him.
``Moving along,'' I continued, pinching a couple of inches of loose flesh around his middle, ``it looks to me like you're still getting plenty of leftovers. And, as for that going to bed part, no matter how early we go, you're there ahead of us.''
``Just because I lie in the middle of the family room snoring with my mouth open and my eyes half closed does not mean that I've gone to bed,'' he claimed.
``Right,'' I told him. ``So how do you explain that in the past month you've slept through a lightning strike, a tree being blown over and four pizza deliveries?''
Did I mention that through all of this conversation he was standing with all four feet planted firmly on the floor and each of his 42 teeth bared?
When he wants to, he can do ferocious real well.
``Anyway,'' I told him, ``I've been doing all this extra work to keep you in the style to which I wish to heaven we had never allowed you to become accustomed.''
``Meaning . . . ?'' he snarled.
``Meaning that you are the only dog I know who has his own car,'' I told him.
``Oh, that,'' he yawned.
``What do you mean, `Oh that?' '' I asked him.
``Well, you know I'm not comfortable in the Mercury,'' he said. ``I slide around too much on the leather seat.''
``We bought you your own seat cushion, for Pete's sake,'' I said. ``From L.L. Bean, yet. What more do you want?''
``It's not my color,'' he yawned.
``So ride in the truck,'' I snapped.
He gave me one of his looks. ``It's just too terribly redneck for words.'' he proclaimed.
``If it's good enough for Dad and me, it's good enough for you,'' I told him.
``I much prefer my Beretta,'' he countered, referring to the little car I bought secondhand for my own use, but which he has now commandeered.
``So does the repair shop,'' I told him, ``only they don't consider it a car, they consider it a cash cow. Do you know how many stories I had to write to pay the last repair bill?''
``You certainly didn't expect me to ride around without air conditioning, do you?''
``No,'' I told him as I threw in the towel, ``I do not expect you to do without air conditioning or fancy table scraps or clean bedding or sleep or your own car.
``But there's one thing you are going to have to do without,'' I told him.
``And what might that be?'' he asked.
``Me sitting home with you all day,'' I told him.
``Oh, that,'' he said, as he pulled the blanket off his bed, dragged it to the laundry room, then plopped down under the kitchen table to wait for his supper to arrive. by CNB