The Dog is Cute and Other Lies
by James
L. Davis
We have an
ugly dog at our house. At one time we had an UGLY dog at our house and
when I say ugly I mean ugly in all capital letters, maybe with a few
exclamation marks thrown in for good measure. But now she is just
ugly. Her name is Sadie.
For most of
my family Sadie has spanned the known realm of Ugly and emerged in the realm of
Cute, which is what I guess happens when you are ugly enough, you become
cute. But for me Sadie is still ugly, but in an endearing way.
Sadie is a 15-year-old pug and for those wondering if pugs grow cuter as they
grow older, the answer is no, they do not. Ugly dogs I believe compensate
for their ugliness by having great personalities and that is one reason why I
have grown to love Sadie, because she has a truly great personality.
I didn’t
always think so. Sadie is my wife’s dog and when my wife and I were
dating I was convinced that there was something wrong with my wife because she
continually referred to Sadie as cute. I didn’t argue with my wife at the
time because she was not yet my wife and I wanted to continue dating her, so I
let her live in her little fantasy world, believing that Sadie was cute.
The first
time I met Sadie was when my future wife invited me over to dinner for the very
first time. My future wife went to the kitchen to finish dinner and she
told me to have a seat on the couch, which I did, trying to impress her with my
obedience. While I sat on the couch I tried to figure out how to sit on a
couch in a manly, ruggedly handsome way. It should be noted that it is
impossible to sit in a ruggedly handsome way on a couch. To sit in a
ruggedly handsome way you must sit on a chair, preferably a wooden chair with
splinters. But since there was no wooden chair with splinters in the room
I tried to sit on the couch in as manly a fashion as is possible, which meant
leaning forward with my hands clasped in front of me and a deep, contemplative
look on my face. My future son soon walked in the room and asked me if I
needed to go to the restroom, so I stopped trying to look contemplative and
settled for a blank stare.
About this time Sadie waddled over
to where I was sitting, sniffed my leg once and plopped down on top of my feet
to take a little nap. I reached down to give her a pet and my hand became
lost in the folds of her skin. Sadie looked up at me with two huge
goldfish eyes, snorted much like a pig, only louder, and smiled at me, which
created more folds of skin all the way down her body for my hand to become lost
within. I stopped petting Sadie, sat back on the couch and Sadie settled
in for her nap.
About five
minutes into her nap Sadie began to snore. It was a long, drawn out snore
that drowned out the television and was in the melody of Twinkle, Twinkle
Little Star. I tried to hum along, but couldn’t keep rhythm.
At this
point I began to wonder exactly what my future wife saw in pugs that made her
want to not only own one, but allow one to live in her house. And that
was when the smell first hit me. Although I lived most of my youth in the
city, I have spent my share of time on the farm and I am used to animal
smells. This was worse than any of the smells I had smelled before.
My dad used to take care of maintenance for a small town and I helped him with
a lot of sewer line repairs. This was worse than those smells as
well. About the time the first wave of gaseousness passed Sadie let loose
with another and the thing that immediately came to my mind was that there are
quite a few jokes about someone trying to pass his own gas off on the family
dog. I realized with horror that I was now living the punch line to one
of those jokes.
About that
time my future wife came into the room, waved her arms in the air and
laughed. “Sorry,” she said. “Sadie has gas.” She took the old
girl by the collar and led her out of the room, saying “isn’t she cute?” to me
as she went and I said why of course she is because I wanted to date my future
wife again and was therefore prepared to lie about her dog if I had to.
After
almost five years of marriage I no longer feel that Sadie is the most hideous
creature that ever lived. In fact, pugs have become my favorite breed of
dog, which has brought on new worries. They say that dog owners start to
resemble their pets, or vice versa, which has resulted in some careful
self-inspection. For instance, I check the mirror more often to see how
many folds of skin develop across my face and down my body when I smile and I
carry Gas-X with me at all times. Just in case. (
