I Think I Lost My Funny

Artist’s impression of lost and lonely dog

I found a lost dog on Sunday and I told people about it and didn’t crack one joke in the telling.  How is that possible? Remember when I lost my dog, Toby, a few years ago?  I managed to get three blog posts of almost novella length from that thirty minutes of agony, and cracked one joke after another despite my overwhelming trauma (Hello? Scraped knee, remember).  Here, I find a dog, and nothing: no funny, no cute, no whimsy.  I think I need to plank face-first again in peak traffic to knock the funny back into me.

Here’s what happened: I walked the dogs up to the local park and we arrived and a lone dog – husky-cross, I think – ran up to us, freaked Toby out, followed us off the park, freaking Toby out more, followed us back on to the park…are you asleep yet?  The man lying in the grass whose dog I thought it was and who turned out not to be dead (I seriously wondered, he was so still) was.  Asleep, that is.  You forgot where I was up to, didn’t you?  See, not funny.

Toby freaking out plays a big part in this story, because I had to pick him up to calm him down and his toenail caught in my chunky cardigan – kind of like a KitKat made of wool – oh give me a break, I’m desperate here – see what I did there? – and he screamed, and I mean SCREAMED in panic and wriggled like mad and I happened to be wearing earphones and he got tangled in them, my cardi and the lead so he was practically hyperventilating.  Trust me, a screaming, wriggling, hyperventilating Yorkshire Terrier is a terrifying sight to behold.  And hold.

Meanwhile, Molly slipped out of her harness, Lost Dog capered around blissfully unaware of the mayhem he was causing by being within, oh, I dunno, three miles of Toby, Toby freaked some more, and Not Dead Man kept on sleeping, despite the fact I practically fell over his feet trying to untangle me, my dog, my earphones and my clothes.

Artist’s impression of Molly, the naughty little monkey

Then I had the first of what turned out to be the same conversation with several strange men that day:

TB: Is this your dog?

SM: No.

TB: Oh.  Okay, thanks.

Artist’s impression of Toby, the Freaking Yorkie

Molly was already off the lead and Lost Dog had a collar but no ID, so I clipped him on and Toby almost fainted.  Resignation then set in, though he did manage a couple of thin-lipped nips at the air beside Lost Dog when he got too close.  Molly followed us home.  Fortunately, the park sort of backs onto our street (trust me, you don’t want a topographical lesson here; I’m falling asleep in the telling as it is), so I knew she’d be safe on the short walk back.

The Hub was watching City lose the FA Cup semi-final (though he didn’t know that yet) when we all arrived home, but promised to help me find the dog’s owner once the match was done.  Then it went into extra time so I marched Lost Dog out of there on his lonesome this time, Molly declining to walk if it meant her own extra time in the street and Toby reclining on his bed (actually Spud’s bed but what Spud doesn’t know Toby could not care less about), emotionally battered until dinner time.

I had the brainwave of saying to Lost Dog, ‘Home!  Take me home!  Let’s go home!  Where’s home, boy?’  He responded by pulling me through a hole in the park fence and running straight to a front door.  I knocked and a handsome man answered:

TB: Is this your dog?

HM: No.

TB: Oh.  Okay, thanks.  Did you know you’re gorgeous?

Actually, I didn’t say that last bit (I think), but I certainly thunk it.

I was beginning to suspect that Lost Dog, though amiable, was a six-pack short of a six-pack.  I repeated the home mantra and he walked me up and down many streets before leading me to another front door.  I knocked and another handsome man answered:

TB: Is this your dog?

HM: Yes!

TB: Oh.  Okay, thanks.  Did you know you’re gorgeous?  Wait, back up…he’s yours?  Why aren’t you out looking for him?  Handsome is as handsome does, you know.  Can I leave my husband and have your puppies?

Um, everything after ‘thanks’ may have taken place in my head but, seriously, where did all these handsome men suddenly appear from?  It’s like the sun came out and a shower of hunks descended on Stockport.

Artist’s impression of Handsome Man

Handsome Man (who so isn’t because is as does, like I said) was extremely grateful but in a real hurry to get rid of me.  It was odd – discounting the fact that a middle-aged, frumpy dognapper* was drooling on his doorstep, why was he so eager to be rid of me?  And then I looked at my watch: aha!  Extra time was almost over.  He obviously wanted to get back to the match.  Loving your pooch is one thing; football is quite another.

So, good deed done for the day, I headed home, where the Hub was crying into his fixture list:

Hub: Hey, let’s go find that dog’s owner.

TB: I already did, and you wouldn’t believe how ugly he was, yuk! Eurggh! Disgusting, horrible.  I didn’t embarrass myself at all, honest.

Hub: That’s not funny.

*

*Spellcheck wants to replace ‘dognapper’ with ‘dapper kidnapper’.  I’m so tempted.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Green

I’m a bit late with this one.  So late, I haven’t had time to look for a photo so I’m going with an illustration:

Green face circled (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

It’s not the only thing I’m behind on.  Christmas shopping barely started, when I’ve usually got most of it done by now.

Today it is exactly one month to Christmas.  

Not panicking.  Not panicking at all.

 

101/1001 (Week 84)

Today’s post:

yesterday’s lost post,

re-written

Forgive me, readers, it has been seventeen weeks (and one day) since my last 101/1001 confession.  So what have I done?

I have:

• Exposed myself
• to two new experiences

I’m sorry – should that be on one line?

My two new experiences are:

• Started NaNoWriMo.  You’ll all be as sick of it as me by the end of November.
• Pressed a button in church.

That last one is not as dull as it sounds.  In fact, it’s so complicated, you might want to grab a notebook and pen so you can keep up with what follows.

The vicar grabbed me on my way in to church last Sunday and asked me to do it. Normally, his teenage daughter (for whom I have new-found respect, nay, adoration) presses all the buttons.  When she’s not there, other people do it.  Last Sunday, the vicar’s teenage daughter and other people were all doing other things.  I think the vicar asked me because I was the first person under seventy to walk in and, technept though I am, I have at least used a computer.

In the second service we use a netbook which goes through a projector onto a white screen above the pulpit.  We used to have a large hymn book, a small songbook, a long, thin service booklet and a sheet with the week’s three readings in full.  Throw in the notice sheet, the monthly prayer diary, the church magazine and sundry flyers for upcoming events and we realised as a church that the people of Jesus are not only trying to save the world, but also to kill it.  

That’s when we came out in favour of technology, if you don’t mind that you can’t look down after the service because of the crick in your neck – it’s a large building; the screen has to be high.

What puzzles me is why the traditionalists in the first service don’t embrace technology.  Okay, many of them are shrinking because of their humps and can’t look up at the projector, but have you tried holding a cornucopia of paperwork with arthritic hands and a cane, gloves and the back of the pew in front to stop you falling over?

Time for the service.

The vicar had given me some papers which I thought had the whole service on but which, as it turned out, had just his bit on.  I didn’t know that at the time, though I did remember afterwards him telling me beforehand.  When a different first screen appeared to the first screen I had on my paper, I panicked.  I scrolled through the whole service in thirty seconds, then back again.  Then forward again.  Then I realised my mistake.  Back to the beginning, and we could start.

Vicar made a little mistake during preparation of the service to be projected: he put the first prayer before the first hymn which was the third song and not after the first hymn which was the third song because it was too close to the second prayer which came after the first hymn/third song.  I dried the cold sweat from my fingers and pressed that button backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards until I found something that read like the words coming from his lips.  

Five minutes in and I was a nervous wreck.  When Mr Vic gestured halfway through the service that I should skip a screen because his sermon had over run by a slight fifteen minutes, I had my third new experience: fainting in church.

Back to 101/1001.  I have also:

• Done the usual things of watching new movies and reading new books but if they are interesting, I blog about them at the time.  I have not reached my targets yet and I am embarrassed to admit that I am closer to having watched a 101 new films than I am to having read a 101 new books.  I have read way more than a 101 books this year, however, including the Twilight series a dozen times.  Actually, it’s more than a dozen times, but I don’t want you to think I’m exaggerating so I played it down.
• Written 171 poems.  I am only eight behind target.  I’ll catch up during April’s NaPoWriMo, when I have to write a poem a day for thirty days, and I usually write about ninety in the whole month.
• Surpassed my target of 30,000 comments on my blog in 1001 days by 6,931.  As we are only just past the halfway mark, I think I need a new target.  I am going to be ambitious and aim for a total of 100,000 comments by the end of this challenge.  If nothing else, it will force me to be polite and answer each and every one of your delightful and helpful comments, which takes forever.   At least I’ll have an excuse to decline next time I’m asked to press the button in church.

*

 

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