Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Confessions

As I've mentioned before, I'm not really a dog person, but I was thinking about something today that I've never really talked about before. I've talked about the dopey Labradors that live in my backyard, but I used to have another dog that lived inside. I thought about her a lot today. I was at home alone today and there was a doorbell that rang on the television. All of a sudden, I thought about that dog. You see, she used to bark at the television whenever she heard a doorbell. Fonzie ringing Mr. C's doorbell - she would bark. Horatio Caine ringing a suspects doorbell - she would bark. Even a Domino's Pizza commercial - when the delivery guy rang a doorbell - that dog would bark. She even barked when she heard bells on game shows when contestants would ring in to give an answer. I remembered that we would always try to calm her down by telling her it was just the t.v. As she got older and would sleep more, oftentimes the doorbells on t.v. would startle her awake barking. We used to get a kick out of her hyper-sense of protectiveness.

Sometimes that dog would snore so loud that it would keep other people in the bedroom from falling asleep. We'd have to poke her or jostle her while she was sleeping to stop her from snoring. She'd look up and appear irritated that someone had disturbed her, but she'd generally just snort and plop back down and start snoring again. I remember getting so annoyed with her snoring! I remembered thinking, "How can one animal make so much noise?"

She used to follow my roommate around everywhere he went. If he went to the kitchen, she'd follow right behind him. If he went to answer the door, she'd follow right behind him barking. If he went into the bathroom, she'd follow right behind him (but she would get annoyed if he shut the door trapping her inside)! If he was out late at night with his work, that dog would stay out in the den until he came home, and then when he went to bed, she'd get up and follow him into the bedroom, find her place on the floor beside his bed, lie down, and go to sleep . . . and snore like a lawnmower.

As I sat here in the house today, I realized that I was bored. Hindsight being 20/20, that dog was a really good companion. I guess I took her for granted. I suppose that I thought she'd always be around. She died a couple of years ago, and everybody was sad. I, on the other hand, acted like it was no big deal. I've never been a dog person anyway. But I guess the good thing about a blog is that you can say stuff that ordinarily you might not say out loud.

I miss you, Ginger.

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