You Just Can't Make This Shit Up

My life really is a never ending stream of ridiculousness. Last night an All-Family-Distress-Call went out when my mom's Scottish Terrier got herself stuck under the driveway.

Ahem, yes - under the driveway. For those of you who are unaware of what a culvert is, you might want to click here. For everyone else, I'll just keep going.

For those of you who don't know, this is a Scottish Terrier.

My sister and I are aware of the minor miracle that made us able to pass through our German mother's care without becoming morbidly obese. We're not sure how we escaped the fate of every single family pet, but I think it was being athletic and also the fact that it was the 80s and most of us wore spandex whenever possible.

In any case, Abby (named after Aberdeen) is the most recent in a long line of Scottish Terriers. As a breed, they are incredibly intelligent and ferocious little shits. Individual results may vary.

Yesterday Abby got it into her head to dive into a culvert and investigate tight spaces that her very large arse had no hope of fitting into.

Or back out of.

And so, Abby was in fact, stuck under the driveway.

Individual results may vary

I got the call around 9 PM because I'm the owner of a very nice Mag lite and my mother had managed to turn my dad's on at some point during the afternoon and never ever turn it back off. So I drove over to my parent's house to find the neighbor, my brother-in-law, my cousin, and my dad all standing in a hole up to their waists and pounding on the drainpipe to see if the dog was in that particular pipe or the next one.

For those of you who don't know, this is a backhoe.

Note - it's very difficult to see a black dog inside a pitch-black pipe after 9 PM.

Abby wasn't in that pipe, so the next element came into effect - the backhoe. Yep. We dug up the driveway, cut the phone line and continued beating on the pipe in the hopes that one very fat Scottish Terrier would get up the gumption to push herself on out. But she didn't, so the backhoe was implemented into Plan C, which involved pulling the entire culvert pipe up and getting it vertical so that her fat butt just fell out one end.

And she then proceeded to go up to the front porch and beg for a treat.

She got it.

Author Photo Friday

I've got an appointment today to make my life better. Or something like that.

Today is the day I put on a dress, do my hair, paint my nails, and pack some comfy clothes to get the more casual shots that I'll probably end up using.

I made a video about my thoughts on author photos. Wish me luck.

And the poor photographer.

I Don't Care

That was my go-to phrase when I was a kid.

Parent: "Mindy, you didn't clean your room."
Me: "I don't care."

Parent: "You're grounded you for a week."
Me: "I don't care."

Parent: "You're making me angry!"
Me: "I don't care."

As you can see, I learned early on that apathy is the biggest stick you can carry while walking softly. So my parents found the perfect book for me: PIERRE by Maurice Sendak.

PIERRE is the story of a young boy who uses that same catchphrase to dismiss, irritate and otherwise flaunt his independence to his parents. Tried beyond endurance, Pierre's parents go to the movies one night to get away and a lion marches into the living room and announces he's going to eat Pierre, who boldly claims -

"I don't care."

And is thus eaten.

After this little literary gem had been installed on my bookshelf, my parent's automatic response to my defiant "I don't care" was -

"Okay, Pierre."

Which was a really nice way to say, "Get your shit together or you'll be eaten by a lion."

I hear "I don't care," everyday in my job, and it never slips by without my brain tacking on, "Okay, Pierre." So Maurice Sendak is going to be with me for a long time, haunting my steps and reminding me to care.

Or be eaten.