Rudy loves to eat a big meal, ride around in the car, listen to seasonal music and look at Christmas lights. The sparkling strings hypnotize him into a holidaze. Last night we took him for a little ride through the neighborhood. He sat wide-eyed in the backseat, front leg propped against the armrest, leaning on the door with his snout pressed hard against the glass, fogging the window in a blur of dog snot.
If we approach a particularly tacky yard filled with, not just lights, but mobile deer and inflatable scenes, he got all jazzed to the point of hyperventilating. Rudy loves inflatable yard decorations like he loves Newman’s Own gourmet doggy treats. And he can eat those until his little Jack Russell tummy imitated an exploding episode of Myth Busters.
The problem with Rudy’s ride through our neighborhood is, he never makes it through the entire trip without having to stop – and add his own decoration to the arrangements. This pattern of gift-dropping makes me wonder if it is the lights he loves, or his own contributions to the festivities. We have started carrying a pooper bagger thing with us on these jaunts.
There is no more foolish feeling in the world than standing in a man’s lit-up yard, waiting for your dog to fertilize a blow-up snow globe while other cars filled with families drive by with faces pinched in horror.
Rudy could care less. He’s on a mission to drop off the brown family and pee on as many decorations has his bladder can muster. Last night, it happened on a corner lot in the middle of a winter wonderland of bobbing reindeer and waving Santas.
A woman honked her horn at us. Kids toked up on hot chocolate laughed. People gave me dirty looks. Rudy calmly sniffed his way into the middle of a plastic navivity scene, peed on a wise man and pooped next to baby Jesus. This is a new low, even for him.
Hurriedly I scooped up the evidence and followed Rudy, trotting across tangles of extention cords in the yard. He jumped through the open car door like Bonnie and Clyde after looting a bank. I caught my foot in a bloom of plugs the size of a large crab and began to stumble. But I did not fall. I did, however, let go of the little bag. I am not sure where it went. I just jumped into the car and peeled shameful rubber.
On my way to work this morning, I had to drive by the house in the truth of daylight. The decorations were naked and disturbing in their unlit blatentness. The most disturbing thing was the little bag of poo hanging on the outstretched hand of a wireframed caroler. We won’t be passing that house again during the holidays.