mld, December 3, 2003 at 1:05:00 AM CET

And Now, To Make You Cry

Jennifer Saburido - before...

As a man that has gotten behind the wheel after a few too many beers in my younger days, this hit me in the heart.

I implore you in the strongest possible terms not to follow this link, if you are not capable of, and willing to endure, seeing some of the saddest pictures imaginable.

I cannot help but wonder if I am strong enough to live with what this girl and her family have left to them.

I wish I could believe that there is a heaven where things such as this could really be all better.

 

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mld, September 22, 2002 at 5:14:00 PM CEST

Of Dogs And Sin

This last Holy Thursday, nearly two chiliads from the day of the night of the Last Supper, when Jesus transformed bread and wine into his Flesh and Blood for his disciples to eat, (proving that it's actually OK to eat meat during Lent) I'm sitting up in the office around early dusk, when C&C (Caesar and Cleopatra), my two “German Wolfhounds,” start going berzerk, barking and lunging on their stakeout chains.

This is not unusual, them being sighthounds. Though these animals are friendly to a fault around humans and other animals close to their size or larger, (they completely ignore the cows, sheep, and horses at my parent's place) once you reach a certain minimum size threshold, below about fifteen pounds I think, breeding and instinct take over. They were bred to run down small game. Cats, little dogs, birds, etc., are not safe around them.

It's the same instinct that causes greyhounds and whippets to chase the little whatever you call it at the dog tracks. It's funny. They come when you call, but the best, most foolproof way to get them to come to you is to start running away from them—the pursuit reflex takes over and they come get you.

It can be a bit daunting. Hail Caesar, and he likes to come sprinting full blast. Here's this hundred pound hound flying about forty miles an hour heading straight at you. He'll twitch aside at the last minute, usually missing by about eight inches, sliding to a stop about fifteen yards later, making a skidding U-turn to finally leap back to your feet.

He's missed on the close side a time or two.

I weigh about two hundred, a little less nowadays. Once, steamin' in, he stumbled in a pothole, and before he could recover, hit me a glancing blow on the thigh. Sent me flying like I'd been hit by a wrecking ball. The bruise took weeks to heal.

I love watching them run. They remind me of the days when I was fleet, strong, and agile, too. :-)

So, I look out the window to see what's driving them nuts. It's usually a neighborhood cat, or a man walking a doglet, or something along those lines. But they're looking right at the front door of the office, not normally a direction from which springs the objects of their desires.

Curious, I walk out the front door to see what's causing the commotion, and there in the yard is this big, fat, black and grey rabbit calmly munching on some grass. He has to be some sort of mutt of a domesticated breed gone feral, because I don't think that regular cottontails come in that size and color.

I knew he'd been around for awhile, 'cause I'd seen his little bunny poo around the yard, but was surprised to see him in daylight, and his calm demeanor. He clearly knew that he was safe.

When the dogs saw me, the renewed their frenzied barking. They were desperately trying to communicate with me, jumping around, ramping, and giving me these lusty looks like, “Boss, don't you see it? Look, look, over there, a rabbit! Dude, let me off this chain, I'll be good for, like, ever. Let me go get some bunny, puhleeez? With sugar on it? Bambie Eyes Please?”

So here I am in this quandry. I love my dogs, they're good kids. They're never anything but eager to please, hampered in their ability to please me, to obey, only by their meager intellects, and my inability to effectively communicate my wishes to them.

They'll have fun chasing the rabbit. But the fact of the matter is, they're probably not going to catch him, as there are thickly wooded brushy lots on either side of the yard, just about fifteen yards away, so he'll probably get away. The hounds get a workout, and the rabbit gets another story to tell his buddies about his tough day at work. Everybody gets an adrenaline rush, nobody gets hurt. Good clean fun for all.

If not, it's probably better for the rabbit species as a whole, as this guy would have to be swimmin' in the slow end of the bunny gene pool to get caught.

My dog food bill for the week would be a little lighter, to boot. But, when said rabbit takes off into the woods, that dumb bitch Cleo (faster than Caesar, but a true blonde in every sense of the word) is most likely going to lose sight of him and run straight into one end of the woods, straight out the other without missing a step, and on into the subdivisions and cattle pastures behind them, bouncing from wabbit to cat to bird to itty bitty doglet chasing as animal targets of opportunity arise for about three freakin' miles before she runs outta gas, and my fat ass is gonna be one gigantic panting sweatball three steps from ambulance's door before she's done terrorizing every animal in north Harris County that falls below the fifteen pound Sight Hound Fair Game Limit.

Don't laugh. It's happened before. More than once.

This vision tilts the decision. Advantage: rabbit.

Just so I can get some peace, I need to run the rabbit off. I pick up a rock and hum it with my best thirty-five mph fastball form at the rabbit to move him along. The rock flies in approximately the correct compass direction, and lands close enough to the rabbit that he gets a dim awareness that there might be a small scent of danger in the air, and idly floops off to the nearby briar patch. The dogs falls silent, disappointed, casting mournful eyes in my direction.

I decided to call the rabbit Floopy.

Well, Floopy's been coming around regularly now, as the little part of the yard over the septic field is lush with tender spring grass, little red, blue and purple flowers, dandelions, and all other manner of lapine delicacies. I imagine it won't be long before he gets the word out on BunnyNet, and we'll be SRO on the septic field. That's cool by me, as it means I don't have to mow the daddy-banger twice a week.

Here's my problem: Floopy and his friends are driving my poor dogs mad, so I'm feeling bad. I imagine the bloodlust they're feeling from this constant temptation is about how I'd feel if Marilyn Monroe, Marina Baker, and Cookoff Girl were all giving each other a tongue bath about three feet away, with me behind a Lexan barrier in a straitjacket wearing boxing gloves.

From the looks they're giving me, they clearly think I'm nuts. Here's this big floopy rabbit to chase. It's what they're all about, the chase, the snap, the crunch of little bunny bones between their incisors, the taste of hot bunny blood rolling onto their tongues. It's what they were bred for, their Official Purpose in Life.

They didn't grow up, aimless, angst-ridden, wondering about the Meaning of Life, or what career they'd choose When They Grew Up, (Should I bartend, join the Peace Corps, sell out and go to work for M$, take a non-job, what?) They know. They're Small Game Hunters.

Bring on the prey, baby, and watch us work.

What could be simpler? Am I, their lord and master, stupid? How have they offended me? Am I mad at them? Why won't I let them chase the rabbit?

I wish I could open up their little doggie skulls, or do some sort of Vulcan mind meld and pour the understanding into their heads, so they would understand about heart attacks, leash laws, pissed off neighbors and their lawsuits caused by little Petunia the Pussy's or Peter the Poodle's bones crunching between their incisors, or any of my other human reasons.

But I don't think I can do that. They are limited by their inability to comprehend the thought processes of a consciousness more vast than theirs.

The canine middleware doesn't support the primate OS. Out of memory. Buffer overflow. Divide by zero. Crash.

It's like trying to teach a cow calculus.

Now I could, I guess, get a big stick or a whip or something along those lines, and beat the dogmeat out of them every time they bark at a rabbit, or chase a kitty, but I'm not the Old Testament kind of lord and master that likes to inflict suffering on his animals to bend them to his will. I can't bring myself to be that mean. They can't help what they are.

OK, reasoning won't work, and I won't use force. What's left?

Unreason.

I am going to start reading the Bible to them. I am going to instruct them in the errors of their ways. I'm going to tell them that the problem is that they are pagan dogs.

They are not saved, have never heard the Good News, and asked to be saved by the grace of dog from their sinful natures.

I'm going to tell them about original sin, how it's their own dogdam fault that they want to chase rabbits, and not the fault of the men that bred those natures into them.

I'll translate the Bible into canine terms for them, of course. For example, I'll tell them the story of how the sin of Bunny-Crunching came into the world.

Waaaay back when there was the First Dog, Bill. Bill, made in the image of Dog, was told by Dog that he could do anything he wanted to, roll in the grass, sleep on the sofa, boink the the First Bitch, Hilary, whenever she came into heat, do anything at all he wanted, except that he couldn't, under any circumstances, poo on the carpet.

But the Evile PussyKat talked Hilary into getting Bill to poo on the carpet. PussyKat told Hilary that dog pooed on the carpet, and so convinced Hilary that to poo on the carpet was the Thing To Do.

So, Bill got led astray by Hilary and her Kitty, and pooed on the carpet. Dog got angry with them, tossed them out of his house, and into the doghouse. Not before they managed to lift a bunch of furniture and art to take with them from the House of Dog to the doghouse, but that's another story.

It's really gonna damage their self-esteem to find out that they are so messed up, but that can't be helped. In sales, it's called Creating The Need.

After they wrap their dogbrains around around Original Sin, Shame, and Inherited Guilt, we'll start on Salvation. The Solution to The Need.

I'll tell them how, in order to save them from their natures, Dog bought into the world the Perfect Dog, the Dog that even though he was as fully a dog as the rest of the dogs, he was free of the urges to chase the kitty, bite rabbits, boink bitches, and poo on the carpet.

This Perfect Dog, RTT (Rin-Tin-Tin), would also be 100% Human, in addition to being 100% dog. In fact, RTT would be the the son of Human, by way of a Virgin Bitch who would get to be with child without benefit of Dog actually having to put his Dogly Dong in her, because, well, because Boinking is now a Bad Thing since Bill pooed on the carpet and got thrown into the doghouse, because Boinking leads sooner or later, to puppies, and every one of them is a vile little damned sinner of a puppy because of Original Sin, so each of those helpless innocent kissable puppies, so cute you just want to eat them up, nibble on their little puppy ears and paws, blow bubbles on their bellies, increases the amount of Evile in the world, and is just one more soul to has to be saved.

So if you boink that means you are on the PussyKat's team of Darkness and not on the side of Dog and the Light.

Besides, you can get thrown in jail in most jurisdictions for interspecies sex.

Finally, this DogMan, though free from sin, would be put to cruelly put to death by Animal Control so all dogs can be forgiven from the sins caused by the desires the breeders bred into them, so all they have to do is ask for forgiveness in the Holy Name of Rin-Tin-Tin.

And because RTT is both Dog and Man, he will be able to explain about heart attacks and lease laws and lawsuits in a manner that they will be able to understand.

Then I'll show them all sorts of pictures of RTT being cruelly beat to death, set up little statues of him to remind them of his sacrifice, and lead them in daily prayers of thanks and contemplation of the Holy Mysteries, not the least of which is who would ever think beating and killing the Perfect Dog, the Dog that never did anything wrong, the pure Dog, the ScapeDog, for the other dog's sins, makes any sense at all.

Parts like that are where it helps to have a lot of Faith.

As I think about it, I don't think the New Testament method is gonna work unaided. It doesn't seem likely that I'm going to be able to translate all this into dogthink unaided.

It's gonna take a Miracle. So, I'm counting on Divine Intervention.

I'm going to pray that the Creator gives me the same miraculous ability he gave to the original authors of the Good News to explain His Nature in terms that make sense to their dogbrains.

It's not really that much more difficult task than explaining it to humans, in my opinion.

Observe the following chart:

To make a Wild-Assed Guess, I estimate it only about one googoleth more difficult to explain the ineffable nature of a Being with the power to create time and space, and all that is in it, to a dogbrain than to our own monkeybrains.

The tiny little hairline crack between them and us is much smaller than the yawning chasm between us and the Creator.

So if we can understand His Nature, remake Her into our image, and divine Its wishes with respect to us, they should be able to also. So, with the Creator's help, I am optimistic.

If Paul could do it, so can I.

I mean, look at all the advantages. I like dogs to start with. It's not like I work for Animal Control capturing bad dogs and putting them to sleep, and He's going to have to strike me down and fry my truck with a lightning bolt to get my attention and get me to realize my True Calling.

I will be the first Evangelist to the Canines, the Patron Saint of the Hounds, St. Marcus the Dog Whisperer, and, hopefully, someday rewarded for my efforts to make sure that All Dogs Go To Heaven by being welcomed into the bosom of the Creator and rewarded with Eternal Life.

I sense that some of you are skeptical. But why not?

Does not the Creator love all His creations? Does the Good Book not say (Matthew 10:29) that he is mindful of the fall of a single sparrow? Surely there is room enough in Heaven for every flavor of life, both the dim and the quick? Would a loving Creator discriminate against His slower children?

Mere human parents are able to love children afflicted with accidents of birth that prevent them from reaching the levels of intelligence, reason, and consciousness that most of our children do.

By all accounts, they love them as much as they do their more fortunate offspring. Can we accuse our Creator of lesser levels of empathy, love, and compassion? I cannot see how.

I know I am Right, and Righteous.

It cannot be otherwise, because I have Faith that it so, and Faith, the Good Book tells us (Hebrews 11:1) is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, the trump card that moves the mountains of doubt and rationality. No amount of evidence or argument can topple the rock, the fortress, of my Faith. My belief is the be-all and the end-all, and it bends reality to rest in its Procrustean Bed.

This is a big job, though, and is going to require a lot of effort, so I think it only fair that I get compensated for it.

So, after I get Caesar and Cleo saved, we'll all three work to get recruiting, errr, saving, more dogs. I think it'll be the highest and best use of my time to concentrate on the owners.

I'll get on TV to publicize the fact that Salvation in now available for your family pet, and set up services where the owners can bring Fido to meet C&C, and hear them preach. Getting C&C to preach will be no problem, I guaran-damn-tee.

Bring them out on a leash in front of several hundred poochies of various sizes and types for a good fire-and- brimstone Barkfest, and that sermon'll go on as long as you want it to. Better have two good men stout and true, and have them keep a deathgrip on that leash, though, or there'll be some fur flying amongst the faithful.

C&C can also transfer their hard-won knowledge of the nature of the Creator directly to the unwashed in dogthink, with the aid of laying on of paws, and maybe a butt-sniff or two.

Y'all won't know exactly what they're saying, of course, but we'll have Faith that the Holy Spirit will give them guidance, and provide real-time BabelFish style translation for the various canine tongues, the way He did for the original apostles when they spoke to polyglot crowds, so it won't matter if the potential converts are speaking Collie, or Beagle, or whatever.

Through my miraculous powers, I will furnish the translations of C&C's Spirit-filled orations for the human listeners.

I'm thinkin' regular old fashioned Tent Revival Services every Wednesday night, and regular services for the Faithful on Sunday.

After a suitable period of prayer, the pets and their owners could go to Sunday School to get indoctri... training, in the practical applications of Canine Ethics, (the morphing of their natural canine instincts to suit their lords and masters) such as not chasing cats, chewing up shoes, and general obedience, to include, of course, not pooing on the carpet.

Of course, we'll expect the standard tithes, as man cannot live on Salvation alone. We gotta eat, and cable time is expensive. Wouldn't most folks make a donation of, say, $25 bucks to ensure that the family pet can join the family in Eternal Bliss?

Then we can sweeten the deal with a Baptism ritual for the newly saved, complete with a dip for fleas while we're at it. Might as well be practical.

After we get the local store off the ground we go big into cable, maybe get our own 24/7 channel, and start saving souls wholesale instead of retail. We start crankin' in the spinoff revenue, the C&C T-shirts, Beanies, ballcaps, videos, maybe we can get the 77's to do an album—I got it, the lead single will be “Noah's Ark.” An “all dog's children get saved” spin oughta play in Peoria.

I'm seeing a video with C&C running around frolicking with Jesus in a sunlit meadow, catchin' Frisbees, whatever, soft autumn light, plenty of vaseline on the lens for that arty look, working title, “At Play In The Fields Of The Lord.” Fade in a sequence of RTT slowly materializing as he gallops across the field to join them.

Shouldn't be more than a year or so before we generate enough cash flow to go global, sending the missionaries out to start getting operations going so we can really start rakin' in the loot souls.

All For His Greater Glory.

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This tale was first published, in slightly different form, in the Daveworld Journal, a few years ago, on Good Friday

 

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