As you can see from the picture, we have a cat and a dog. Oliver (the cat) runs the house and is in charge of everything except for feeding himself and cleaning his litter box. Other than that, he owns it. Max (the dog) is just happy to be on the planet. If you have ever read a Garfield cartoon and saw Odie, you are up to speed on Max. At our current house, we don’t have a fenced-in yard so every morning and every night, I take Max for walks after he has eaten. Lately, we’ve been down in the lower 20′s overnight so our walks have become a bit faster but this story is about two very recent walks in which I nearly pee’d my pants while walking my dog. I’m certain the stories were much funnier in person than I will be able to make them but I really got a kick out of these walks.

Last Thursday night, I was walking Max and as we’re heading back to the house, he decides to start sniffing around in one of the storm drains when out of nowhere he gets whacked in the side of the head by a stiff right hook from something long, dark and mysterious. It happened so fast, I almost thought I had imagined it but the way Max jumped up into the air, I knew it was real. I couldn’t see it at first but quickly I realized that a fairly large cat must have decided to curl up on the shelf in the storm drain and Max had disturbed its rest. As soon as it had crushed my dogs cranium, it took off out of the drain and ran into the yard beside us. There was a large green telephone switch about 10 feet off of the street and the cat must have hidden behind it. When Max regained his senses, he took off after the cat at which point, the cat jumped up onto the switch box (about 2 1/2 feet high) and started watching. For FIVE FULL MINUTES, my stupid dog ran all over the place trying to find this cat, never once suspecting that it might have jumped onto the switch box. At first, I tried to pull him away but it became funnier and funnier as time went on. He would run to the drain and sniff around, then run to the corner of the house then between the two houses, then back to the drain. The whole time, this cat is just looking at me. You could tell he was just dying to ask if I had to keep the dog on the lease for his own safety. Finally, my eyes crying and the water on my face freezing cold, I had to drag him two houses before he would forget about the cat.

The very next morning, it’s 22 degrees out and Max and are walking past a house that obviously has not turned off their in-ground sprinkler system. I couldn’t believe the things actually worked but they did and sure enough, there are big patches of ice on the road and in their driveway. I was walking along, mumbling under my breath about the idiots when I notice that Max is running with all of his might but not going anywhere. The sprinkler had soaked the concrete in front of another storm drain and the ice and the angle of the concrete were causing my poor dog to skid into the drain. He must have been doing about 65 or 70 when I noticed and gave him a gentle tug. His feet hit solid asphalt and he traveled 10 feet in less than half a second. I wanted to help him because he looked so frightened but I was doubled over laughing so hard. I tried to pet him but I think this just aggravated him and he ignored me for the rest of the walk.

See, I told you it wouldn’t sound as funny as it actually was but I won’t forget those two walks for a very long time.