The Danny: Oy vey!
[Bearing Drift writer Andrea Epps has ceded today’s column space to her third baby, Danny.]
By The Danny
So I have been trying to tell momma about the way my baby brother, Thor, looks at the world for a while now. He’s only 9 months old and unfamiliar with the ways of the outside. I’ve tried to explain that he sees everything as something to chew on, or play with … but she just keeps a hollerin’ “THORRRR!!!!” That is what I hear about 10,000 times a day.
Thor is very smart (thanks to my teaching him about the squirt bottle thing), and momma and sissy call him a 90-pound blanket (he also learned that blanket behavior from me, of course). When sissy sleeps away from home, momma says she can’t sleep. I don’t know why … with both of us in the bed, lying on either side of her … sideways … she’ll never get cold.
Anyhoo … Thor is growing up just like me so, naturally, he is almost perfect. Almost.
Thor and I have been inside lately because there has been a lot of water falling out of the sky. Momma won’t let us go dig when the water is falling even though that is when we love to dig. So we really miss it. Well, the other night, Thor decided it was time to REVOLT!
I tried to tell him it was a bad idea, but he had made up his mind. He’s was planning a jailbreak. Bubba had not gone night-night at all, so he was sleepy. I held it as long as I could, but finally I told Bubba I had to go potty. He opened the door just enough to put me on the potty lead … and then … Thor bum-rushed Bubba, and ran between his legs! OUT THE DOOR HE WENT, NO LEAD!
Oh, my. This was not good. Bubba ran out the door. Momma was in her sleeping shirt and wearing those darn foot covers that I always pull off of her. She put the fuzzy things she calls slippers on, grabbed the leash and the WHOLE BOX of treats … and out the door she went, too.
I started howling. I thought if I could yell to Allfather (Or Odin, as Thor calls him) he would tell Thor to come back. But Momma and Bubba were yelling too. I couldn’t see Bubba anymore because he was running around the neighborhood like an Olympic cross-country superstar. Momma was running through the back yard in her slipper things, screaming for Thor … and Bubba.
Then I heard her say it. “Aw shit!” It is never good when momma says that. Not ever. She started hopping in the yard … on one foot … in the dark. She was properly pissed as she made it back to the deck. She opened the door and put me on my potty lead (I thought … thank merciful God!) but one of her feet looked very different from the other one.
I heard something about a “muddy sinkhole in the yard.” She must have found it under those things that fall off the trees. What that means, I’ll never know, but one of her legs was covered in my favorite mud up to her knee. Man, that slipper thing looked like a dead raccoon she dug out of the yard and put on her foot.
Thor had made it to the house with all the mean dogs, so momma just grabbed a sweater and ran back out … in her sleepy shirt … dead raccoon foot and all.
Momma left me outside, so I could hear all the commotion. Two houses away, there are four mean dogs. They started havin a fit, and I knew Thor was there, nipping at their tails, trying to play. Thor doesn’t understand that some dogs don’t play nice. But he is very, very fast (I taught him well) and sure enough, when Bubba got over there, he was nipping and bolting … having a blast. Bubba was scared for Thor, but I wasn’t worried.
About this time, sissy came home from that place she calls work. Momma and her dead raccoon foot were out front, and so momma got in the car and sissy went to that street thing and said, “THORRRR.” Two seconds later, Thor came dashing out, right in front of Momma, leaped clear over the Cadillac car … just like a deer and dashed back up to the front door, opened it … and went inside. Yes, Thor can open doors …inside and out.
Poor Bubba. Remember I said he was running around like an Olympic superstar? Well, he’s a great soccer player but he’s not a cross-country runner. He ran after Thor so much he made himself sick … and man, was he ever pissed at Thor. Momma was none too pleased either, but she was worried about the cars, so when Thor was inside, she didn’t smell scared anymore.
What a night.
I think it’s time I gave Thor a lesson about cars, strange mean dogs, and jailbreaks. Maybe if I’m a good boy, momma will teach me how to get a dead raccoon foot in the dark.
Other correspondence from The Danny:
–Momma Almost Let My Little Brother Kill Himself, But It Was Thor’s Fault!
