Читать книгу From the Dog's Mouth - Wavecrest Imprint - Страница 11

We have an unbendable schedule at mi casa. I come home from the business office around three o’clock in the afternoon and il mio papà always asks if I brought home the bacon. He can be a smarty pants because he knows that Riggs and I are always playing and biting and yes, Signore Marine, kissing until we flop and nap. All play and no work and he and I like it that way.

Dada usually puts my dinner out when I get home. He works at his computer until his afternoon shower. (May I remind you that he refers to the computer as the anti-Christ. Yet he cannot stop using it. Go figure). Scott, who is like a son to him, says he always seems to be going into or getting out of the shower. Dada showers in the morning and before going to bed at night. He is from hillbilly Alabama where those God-fearing, Republican-voting rednecks take a bath once a week if at all. I have them beat. My groomer Diane bathes me twice a month when she strips and powder puffs me. Dada kisses me more than Riggs the day I am de-flead and fluffed — but that slows down until the next time I get groomed.

My first dog walker was a man named Bob. (Bob, by the way, left town more than a year ago and I’ve had a few new dog walkers. They’re younger and more fun than adults). I would sit and stare at the door, waiting impatiently for Bob to arrive for my afternoon constitutional. We’d then go on a 45-minute walk, when I would poo and pee. God, anal Dada would always ask Bob, “Did Mr. Darby do his business?” The few times I didn’t, mon père would go off the rails. He’d walk around the house asking me why I didn’t poo. “Do you want more food?” he’d ask. Daddy is famous for holding his eliminations when he is on a plane or at the movies or in a restaurant. He even had a friend from North Carolina named Jim Bob who could never go to the bathroom in a public place. Mister G caught his phobia.

And a side note: After going on a walk with Bob, I hop on my Dada’s bed and as he describes it, I scrunch my behind on a pillow on my side of the bed. I do like his bed, partly because I didn’t like the alternative when it was first presented: “You can sleep in your crate or on 600-thread count Pratesi million-dollar sheets and pillows.” (Mon père loves to tell the story of how Pemigio Pratesi started the sheet business in Vinci in Tuscany Italy in 1906. He goes nutso over anything Italian and is wont to say he’ll take mafiosa over any other ethnic. I told you that Dada is more than eccentric!) The choice was a no-brainer so I have been on that fancy bed ever since.