THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 12, 1996 TAG: 9610110057
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: 84 lines
THE POET WHO WROTE of October's bright blue weather should have seen the sky on Tuesday morning.
The storm that swooshed up the coast awakened me at 6 a.m. Glass panes in the door between the patio and my bedroom rattled with each gust of wind. Beyond the door, rainwater charged through the gutters with the churning sound of a muffled locomotive.
I pulled the blinds aside and watched a white flash of water exploding on the splash block beneath the spout.
Tossing back the covers, I turned on lights, walked to the front door, and looked outside. The wind-driven rain slanted toward me like a swayed curtain of glass beads. The bellies of angry gray clouds were swollen with their cargo - enough water to fill the swimming pools in four states.
I fetched the umbrella, raised it against the rain, got throughly soaked retrieving the newspaper with its clear, plastic raincoat, and headed for bed.
Mabel, the cocker, was sprawled on the sofa. She was not herself.
When I passed she raised her head slightly from her paws. Her eyelids drooped halfway down her eyeballs and the corners of her mouth were pulled down as if by hooks.
Depressed, you know.
Mabel is no fool. She knew the routine. The rain splatting at the windows meant no morning walk on the bay beach. No rollover on dead crabs. No sniffing of Labradors and setters walking with their owners on the beach. And no chasing of sea gulls from the water's edge. In short, a bummer. And she showed it.
I finished the paper an hour later, made coffee and filled Mabel's dish with food. We both knew we had a problem on our hands.
Walking across the street to a grassy sward at the lake's edge on such a morning to let Mabel do her business was going to be a socks and head-soaking adventure. The rain had increased, if anything. The pansies in window boxes on the patio, whose yellow and blue heads had been raised so proudly before the storm, had been beaten into submission by the downpour. Their heads were now face down in the sodden dirt.
No matter. I did what I had to do. I dressed, grabbed the umbrella, hooked Mabel's leash to her collar, opened the door and started out. She resisted immediately. She stood at the doorway with feet dug into the carpet as though hammered there by nails. She was having no part of it, her head turning back toward the sofa in protest.
Her body language said it all: ``Me? Go out in that? Are you crazy?''
Couldn't blame her, of course. I've seen plenty of hurricanes with stiffer winds than we got Tuesday morning. But none of them beat Tropical Storm Josephine for rainfall. My shirt, needled by rain, was soaked by the time I closed the door.
I unhooked the leash. Mabel trotted back to the sofa, after fixing me with an accusing stare. ``Get real,'' she seemed to say. As if adding an exclamation point to the thought, she scratched vigorously at the sofa cushion before circling and flopping down.
Great. At some time during the morning she was going to have a call of nature. I wanted her to answer it outdoors.
Before leaving for work, I attempted Plan B, which had sometimes worked when there was a light rainfall. At such times Mabel would walk through the doorway to the patio, sniff around for awhile, and do her business.
But there were 2 inches of rain on the patio floor. Rain blew in sheets across it and streamed from cracks in the wooden deck above.
I grabbed her collar as she cowered in a corner of the sofa and pulled her across the carpet, opening the door, letting her outside and closing the door behind her.
She wasn't buying. She stood sideways next to the door pane, standing there like a dog sculpture, a sour look on her face. She stayed there for minutes without moving until I let her in.
What next? I had saved a large pasteboard box in the hall closet. Would it be possible to cut a pair of holes in the box, put Mabel inside, close the top, run the leash through the holes and drag Mabel and the box across the street?
Nah.
She liked the towel. After patting her down, I dropped it on the floor. She dried herself by rolling onto her back giving a dog imitation of an X-rated movie: panting heavily, wriggling her rump as her paws clawed at the air.
I gave up and left her behind, driving through the rain to work at 45 mph. No one at the office had a solution to the question: How does a dog do its business in a tropical storm?
When I returned home I knew Mabel had left a gift for me somewhere. I found it on the floor of the guest bedroom.
She wasn't the least embarrassed or contrite. Stuff happens, she seemed to say. Or something like that. by CNB