Here I am again putting off starting my next home improvement project and/or mowing the lawn. Waiting for my pre-workout Bro Drink to kick in while I pregame with some Diet Dew and sunflower seeds. I’ll be sorry later, but what a glorious shoulder workout this will be. The one good thing about pre workout drinks (Bro Drinks copyright me 2018) is that once you’ve finished drinking it, you must workout or your bones might actually jump out of your meat sack. I was listening to the Avett Brothers, which makes me feel like I kinda have to write something until the Gold’s tweaking begins.
Last night “Wasn’t Me” and “Not Me” Logan and Luke respectively, were at it again. We dropped lucky Liz off at the airport so she could skip the eight hour drive to Michigan to hang out with our grandbaby and see “Wicked” with Ashley in Detroit. Am I bitter? Yep. Meanwhile, I am stuck with these two clowns who immediately begin making random annoying noises while I sit in stop and go traffic in the rain (Missourians have an intense fear of falling water and wet blacktop) for an hour. When warned the loud annoying noises would not be tolerated they switched tactics to annoying songs about Fortnite and Roblox.
I attempt to bribe them to keep quiet when we get home by stopping for candy and grabbing a racing game for the PS4, so I could drive as fast as I want for once. I did not realize Walgreen’s sold bags of individually wrapped speed rolled in Red Bull and cocaine. I’d have that candy tested, but they snorted it all up before I could try. I run not walk down to my cave in the basement to load my new game. Lo and behold the stupid machine doesn’t have enough room, on it to load the stupid game because some jack ass downloaded 50 gigs worth of some other game that I didn’t buy.
Probably the most common conversation in our house now begins, “Hey who did this?!” Most common answers; “Wasn’t Me” and “Not Me.” Hence their new monikers. Games are magically downloaded to our phones, computers, and game systems even though we’ve set up electronic controls to keep this from happening. This is on top of explaining the biblical and moral obligations for children to honor their parents. Biblical and moral obligations and honoring their parents looks even funnier in relation to Wasn’t and Not than it sounded in my head. We’ve decided it must be the video game fairy who is a close fantasy relative to the nefarious empty pop tart box in the pantry, mystery stain, and remote control kidnapping fairies that reside somewhere in a hidden evil fairy village within our home.
There was a point in the evening where I may or may not have begun to lose it on Wasn’t and Not when my best household friend ever Copper stepped between me and the boys. Copper is a 12 year old neurotic chocolate Labrador. Copper has been my PTSD Service dog before I ever knew there was such a thing. He has no training or official title, he just gets me. He’s laying here on the kitchen floor at my feet while I type. He’s as close to me as he can get at all times in the house. Whether I like it or not. He’s about 80lbs of chocolate love who firmly believes he’s still an 8 week old puppy and tries his best to fit in places only a puppy could fit.
Copper may or may not have saved their lives or at least saved me an incident involving “Scary Dad” which unfortunately is sometimes the only version of me the boys will listen to. A few months ago Copper was having diarrhea that looked like what I believe fireworks would look like if they were liquid and shot out of a dog’s butt. It was truly impressive. Copper is extremely modest and absolutely refuses to go to the bathroom in the house. He will stop pooping in the yard if he sees you looking. This went on for a couple days and then he added explosive foul smelling vomit all over the place. I took him to the vet and long story short, the vet tells me he has serious butt cancer and if he keeps getting sick I may have to decide to “make a decision” in the next week.
Wait, what? He’s got firework diarrhea and fountain puke. Can’t we try and fix that first? She kinda gives me a pat on the shoulder like, “sure kiddo here’s some magic pills, but old Copper’s probably headed for doggie heaven.” Well screw that. After a couple weeks of antibiotics he was right as rain again. Doctors pbbtt whatever.
Copper has been around for me through several unexpected, tragic, and horrific deaths in my family and circle of friends. He’s been there when I’ve come home from a scary or traumatic night/day on patrol. When I’ve been sick, mad, bummed, recovering from yet another knee procedure, Copper has been right there. He knows exactly the look to give me, where to sit by me, when to make me pet him, and he knows when to just be next to me and be still. When I say he’s neurotic, I’m not kidding. We bought him straight from a reputable breeder and have treated him as a treasured member of this family since day one. Yet he has some weird quirks you’d see out of an abused dog.
He is afraid of just about everything. The slightest noise makes him jump. Any electrical or communication cable/wire appears to him as a fire breathing poisonous snake. He will not go near it. He has stayed trapped in our living room for hours because there was a phone charging cord across the floor in the opening between two couches. Speaking of couches up until a few years ago he wasn’t allowed on the couches, well that’s not really true, he just never tried to get up on them. Then we brought home Liz’s little dog the worst dog that’s ever lived Bear. Bear is a mini Dachshund who does whatever the Hell he wants whenever the Hell he wants to do it. You couldn’t pry him off the couch, chairs, coffee tables, beds etc if you tried. So one day Copper apparently thought, “well that’s BS” and hopped up on a couch. However, there can be no item of clothing, blanket, or any other object in his space on the couch. He stands and stares at you until you have moved any and all obstructions most big dogs would just lay on or move themselves.
Copper must think we might poison him. We often feed him whatever we’re eating scraps of steak, chicken etc. When we toss it to him he always pretends he’s going to catch it, then at the last second he ducks it till it hits the floor where he can sniff and visually inspect it. Most dogs we’ve had, including Bear will snatch and eat a handful of ball bearings if we picked them up from the kitchen table or counter and tossed them.
Regardless of his weirdness, Copper has been one of the greatest friends I have ever known. He cracks me up and just makes me feel good when I come home and makes me regret a little bit every time I leave. He kind of fits me being a little goofy in the head too. We have lots of conversations every day. I even catch Liz chatting him up. We seek his counsel often on Wasn’t and Not. Like, “Copper did you hear that…how they talk me to me?” Things like that. He rolls his eyes and shakes his head like “What are ya gonna do, they’re kids ya know?” Then he wags his tail and gives the, “So uh you gonna give me anymore of that possibly fatally poisoned bacon or what?”
When I came home from the gym before taking Liz to the airport last night, Liz was cleaning up quite a bit of blood from the floor. It would appear that the alleged tumor and or sore near his butt must’ve burst a bit. The other night on the couch he had a bit of a seizure which scared the crap out of me. I grabbed hold of him thinking that moment, might just be our last. I squeezed him as hard as I could and told him I wasn’t ready yet. After 20min or so he was chasing Bear around out in the backyard. As Liz was cleaning up blood he was running circles around the trampoline watching his babies jump and wrestle.
I kind of need Copper to live as long as I do, but he seems to be warning me ever so slowly that’s not going to happen. I recently lost a very good friend of mine and have been down about my mom having cancer as well and my grandson getting too big when I’m not there. Copper was there though. He is always there. I am just not sure what I’ll do when he’s not. In the meantime I’m getting the “Quit stalling lard butt” look from him. Also, “Hey speaking of lard you made anything without poison in it for me to eat?” I’m telling you this dude cracks me up. If you don’t have a really good dog you are missing out. Don’t even think about talking to me about your cat. Cats are part of Satan’s demon army and they will suck your breath out in your sleep after they step in their own poop and walk all over your counters. Did I ever mention I’m more of a dog person? Seriously get a dog.
Jacked Up Dad 