There are four ways out of the DogHouse. You can be good- okay, we both know that’s not going to happen- you can finish serving your sentence, which isn’t likely because new time is always being added for new crimes, and then there is the ‘ALL INMATE’ and ‘GENERAL POPULATION’ JAIL BREAK & MAD RUSH for the front gate; which is as likely to succeed as finishing your sentence. And, then there is parole, which is when she thinks you have learned your lesson, but secretly knows you haven’t because you have no idea what the lesson was in the first place, but she is getting tired of bossing Eightball around because no matter how many times she tells him to, “Shower, shave, change your clothes- no shorts- and brush your teeth because we’re going shopping,” he doesn’t do it because he’s a dog and he doesn’t have too, even if he did understand, and I’m not so sure he doesn’t, but hey, that could just be me!
In the ANIMAL HUSBANDRY- chapters of the DHMF (Doghouse Manifesto) buried in the back sections, sub-titled, MEN: PIGS IN SHORT PANTS & TENNIS SHOES- there is an obscure rule that is posted with no number, because it is not a rule so much as it is a universally true axiom: “A woman will only want what she does not, or cannot have.” You must be careful with universally true axioms, because they can, and usually do, cut both ways.
For instance, I didn’t ‘catch’ her. Oh, she lets me think I did, but I didn’t, at least that’s what she tells me. I got, ‘got’, but I had to do the ‘getting’ in order to get ‘got’, get it? In other words, I took one look at her, fell on my hands and knees, and begged her to marry me. No dice. If she noticed I was there, she ignored me. This went on for weeks. Finally, I got tired and stopped begging. Next thing I know, we’re sharing pajamas and toothpaste, and she’s constantly telling me to squeeze the damned tube from the bottom- like it matters? In other words- we got married.
I had just settled into the garage to change the oil in her car. I had the ballgame on the radio and a cooler of beer next to my lawn chair. I figured, I’d change the oil, and in the process get sufficiently dirty, greasy and oily enough to look like I was busy, even if she found me sitting in the lawn chair drinking a beer.
“Hey!” She shouted and scared me so bad I nearly fell out of my lawn chair, but only spilled my beer instead, “I have to go to the dentist and you have to drive me. Shower, shave, change your clothes- no shorts- and brush your teeth!”
I was only momentarily perplexed.
“Why do I have to go to the dentist?” I asked? “I don’t have an appointment…”
“Because you have my car up on stilts with no oil, I can’t drive a stick, and I won’t be fit to drive home because of the anesthesia; and besides, you’re not fooling me, you’re not doing anything.”
Before we go any further, there is an often overlooked imperative in the Manifesto, under the CHILTON’S AUTOMOTIVE REFERENCE SECTION- “Never buy a car or truck that she can’t drive, or eventually, you’re going to have to drive her somewhere!”
Just tuck that away for future reference. It’ll come in handy someday. I promise.
Silently, I cursed my truck for having a manual transmission, which is as foreign to her as brassiere hooks are to me. Okay, so eventually, I figured out the brassiere hooks…
In the DHMF, (Doghouse Manifesto) Rule 2657a under the heading- ALL IT TAKES TO LOOK BUSY IS TO BE BUSY- there is a little known codicil that states, “Looking busy will only work if she doesn’t really know the difference…” however there is a subsection, in the ASTRAL PROJECTIONS- chapters under HELL: WHEN IT FREEZES, OR IT ALL BREAKS LOOSE! and the subsection entitled, WHEN TIME AND SPACE COLLIDE, that clearly states, that she will only be fooled by this for about as long as the honeymoon lasts. Okay- we have been married long enough for the honeymoon to be over. I’m dead in the water. Looks like I am taking her to the dentist. And, I wouldn’t mind so much, except that I am never going to get out of his office without an appointment of my own! (@#$%*!)
I got her home. No easy task. She looked like and was about as manageable as a inebriated Moscow Circus Dancing Bear on ice skates, with a bad set of dentures- uhm, that’s wrong isn’t it (?) @#$%*!- and got her into bed. Two root canals, three fillings, and a thorough upper and lower set cleaning later, and she was in pretty bad shape. I was trying to feel sorry for her, but unfortunately, the fact that I was laughing kept getting in my way.
“Urgh umpmpth blah do, ba de blah gleath…” She mumbled tiredly.
“What?” I asked her. My first mistake in what would prove to be many that afternoon; never ask a woman any question you don’t already know the answer to, because you’re likely to find out something you really didn’t want to know.
“Urgh umpmpth blah do, ba de blah gleath!” She repeated.
I had no idea what she was trying to say.
“You want some water?” I asked?
“Urgh umpmpth blah do, ba de blah gleath!” She insisted, grinding the few teeth she had left.
I wasn’t any closer to understanding her.
“You want me to fluff your pillow?” I asked hopefully…
“Urgh umpmpth blah do, ba de blah gleath!!” She shouted, and spit one of her saliva soaked gauze pads out.
“You want me to teach you to drive a stick? What?!” I asked her in desperation.
She steeled herself against the massive amounts of drugs that were coursing through her veins like drunken sailors on leave in the Philippines, leaned up on one elbow, and got at least one of her eyes to focus on me:
“Urgh umpmpth blah do, ba de blah gleath, OOPID!”
Okay, OOPID (!) I immediately understood. That’s loosely the universal translation for, “If you don’t do something wonderful for me right now; as soon as I can stand, I’m either going to kill you, or hire a divorce attorney and take half of your stuff!”
She’s never going to remember if I did anything wonderful for her or not.
Eightball’s teeth are in great shape: who would have guessed? I have an appointment for mine next week, (@#$%*!) but because I know how to drive a stick and she doesn’t change oil: she won’t be going with me, and the only good news this time is, that by the time her anesthesia wears off, she’ll have no idea that I wasn’t wonderful, and I’ll just be back to trying to plead down my original sentence! I hope…
But, I still don’t understand what in the hell, “Urgh umpmpth blah do, ba de blah gleath!” means, and maybe I’m just better off?
You’ll have to ask Eightball. He seems to understand everything she says. Or, maybe he’s just pretending and is actually smarter than he looks?
* sigh *
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