Can Your Bulldog Tiptoe?

                It’s funny how our memories work.  I can hear a certain phrase and start singing (usually in my head, sometimes out loud) related song lyrics.  I can throw down all sorts of Baptist Hymns from even the most mundane phrase in a sermon.  Often, I will have quick, sudden memories come flooding back when the most random and un-related things happen. 

                Today, I was opening the door of my temporary office, which is the size of the back pocket of a hipster’s skinny jeans and was accosted by a stench.  Apparently, when I left work on Tuesday afternoon, it was before the young man who empties the trash came by to empty mine.  In my haste to flee the confines of the federal government for the frolicking fun of my birthday extravaganza, I failed to remember to place the waste receptacle in the hallway, inadvertently leaving behind something in it that, after returning 36 hours later, smelled like a dead animal who had passed away after eating really old manicotti. 

In the tight confines of this cubicle-with-a-door, the stench was concentrated, y’all.  I promise you, when the smell hit me in the face, I immediately assumed a defensive posture, not unlike that illegal one The Karate Kid did at the end of the movie.  It was a fitting response, considering I had two months of karate training during fifth grade in Oklahoma before my instructor left town for reasons other than my astonishing lack of talent or skill.  Trust me, I can hit and/or kick you, but only if you stand directly in front of me and walk into my fist and/or foot, repeatedly until you injure yourself or get really tired and/or disinterested, like me.  Unsurprisingly, this reminded me of my father; the stench, not the martial arts.

When that particular synaptic misfire landed on The Dad, I suddenly remembered a conversation we had recently where he told a story that he surely could not have believed, but seemed to with his whole heart, y’all.  He truly thought he had taught his bulldog Rufus to tiptoe.

Anyone who knows The Dad knows he can be aggressive and loud.  He was a frightening man when we were growing up.  His Boston Terrier, Lulu, is a sweet little dog; I practically stole her form him when he lived with me in Palo Alto.  She is an awesome pooch and I have only heard her bark one time.  Ever.  The Dad said he trained her not to bark.  I’m unsure of the methods and I think it’s best if we don’t ever find out.  Do I think he hit her?  No, I don’t.  Do I think he yelled at her until she complied?  Oh, yes, I do.  The Dad was a proponent of the ‘Volume is a Virtue’ ideal used mostly by barking heads who consider themselves pundits, these days.  It’s the main reason I am so loud.  It’s in my DNA, people. 

We were discussing Rufus and how big and clumsy he is at the age of two, weighing about 100 pounds.  Think of a Volkswagen Beetle, but with fur.  He told me that when Rufus moves across the kitchen floor headed toward The Dad in the quixotic hope that he might get some table scraps, his toenails clickety-clack.  The Dad, not the most patient of individuals, told me that he had been trying to train Rufus to be quieter on his sojourns.  By train, The Dad meant yelling at Rufus to be quiet.  I laughingly asked if his method had worked and he swore that it had. 

Throughout the conversation he kept asking me if I could hear him because he couldn’t hear me.  I assured him it was probably because his phone is a relic, y’all.  Seriously, it is a flip phone.  I think he got it for free with a fill up at the gas station.  I repeatedly told him to turn up volume, but I sang it like that M.A.R.R.S. song, Pump up the Volume, which was as helpful as you’d think. 

I asked him if he was wearing his hearing aids.  He said, “Do what?”  I repeated the question.  He said, “I can’t understand you, JD.”  I then yelled, “Hearing Aid!”  He replied, “My battry’s dead in my hearing aid, but I don’t need it.”  I said, “Yes.  You.  Do.”  He replied, “What?”  At this point I sighed the sigh of the overburdened and simply waited for him to pick up the conversational baton in this relay race of a phone call. 

His next words were very excited.  He said, “Here comes Rufus, JD!  He’s tiptoeing!  I’ll put the phone down by the floor, so you can hear that there’s no sound!”  I heard a shuffling sound as he bent toward the floor and then heard, very clearly, doggy toenail on tile.  Rufus was clickety-clacking as loudly as you’d expect from a dog so meaty and clumsy. 

He picked up the phone and said, “Ain’t that somethin’?  I taught ol’ Rufus how to tiptoe!”  I could hear his smile all the way from Ohio.  I yelled, “Yes, sir!  That’s somethin’ all right.”  I didn’t know what else to do except go along with it.  I just hope he doesn’t try to go on America’s Got Talent with his new ‘skill’.  My sainted brother doesn’t need the headache of posting bail money if/when The Dad gets “some lip” from Simon Cowell.  Check your local listings, just in case.