Ants and Plants

 

A dog with no tags wandered into my yard yesterday. I know this dog has to be someone's pet. The dog is mostly clean, no fleas, nails clipped, friendly. People are generally pretty irresponsible with their pets in this area, but I haven't seen this dog before. I don't think it came from anywhere around here.

 

That’s an ad from the Craig’s List. It appeared Saturday, and I replied with mixed emotions and high hopes.  That’s how life is for me. It’s mixed, odd, high and quirky.   It’s ant vs. rubber tree in a battle royale where the ant uses true ACME tools and the rubber tree is superglued to the floor.

 

Ooops there goes another herniated ant…

 

But Rob, you say that you’re an optimist!

I am, I also say I don’t talk to myself. Which are you going to believe?

 

Actually I am an optimist.  I see the rubber as half filled.  Well wait.  That may be what I see, but it’s not what I meant.  I meant that I recognize that life is stacked against a chosen few, and that if you ask anybody who knows me, they’ll tell you that there is nobody more blessedly chosen than I am.  I can hold the fruit of victory in one hand, and know that some other hand is gonna run off with that watermelon of joy every time.

 

Remember the bugs Bunny picnic cartoons?  The ones where his food wanders off? He grabs the watermelon, and there, underneath, is an ant going away with his hands empty? 

 

Usually, that ant is played by Robert Boyd.

 

I’m used to it.  It’s part of my charm.  See, just because my joy is lifted from my hands doesn’t mean that I have to let it go quietly.  I’m going back to get it. No joy left behind.  That’s my policy. Somebody’s gonna get tired of this game of ant and house plant, and it isn’t me.  I’m a professional.  I’m an optimist because I refuse to let the rubber tree walk away. 

 

Something’s got to give, it should be the stretchy thing.

 

This doesn’t really make me special, just determined.

 

My dog is still missing, but I’m determined to find him; it’s just going to take longer than expected. That Craig’s List ad? It brought hope. Who cares if it was a little grumbly about irresponsible parenting techniques?  They’d found a Cosmo-esque dog. I’ll take the tongue lashing, if the flicking tip leads to my little buddy.

 

It didn’t.  No matter how Cosmo-esque the dog was, it wasn’t the real thing.  It was just a plastic fruit dangled before my hungry ant eyes.

 

Saturday I told MyEx about Cosmo.  It was time. I had high hopes she wouldn’t take it too hard.

 

“As his mommy, I thought you should know: Cosmo ran off.”

“Are you sure?”

“Uhm, I know that the back yard is a little over grown, but I assure you, he’s not lying dead under the bougainvillea.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Good, cuz for the record, I did look. What kind of dad do you think I am?”

“Uhm, good?”

 

We talked.  I unloaded.  It felt good. It’s been weird, the last few days. I’ve already driven around to all the animal shelters looking for positive signs.

 

“Your Dog Here!”

 

I didn’t find one.  The little girl at one of the shelters was really helpful though.  She brought out the big black binder.

 

“I, uhm, usually don’t like showing this—because, you know—but you’re welcome to look.  If you want.”  I looked at the binder.  The cover held one bold word: “DECEASED.” Not a word for the weak or optimist at heart.

The tome weighed heavy in my hands.  I couldn’t imagine flipping through this 500lb rubber tree, let alone wanting any part of it. This couldn’t be the fruits of my search.

“Oh, I have a picture!” I clicked my iPhone to show her what my undeceased dog looked like.

“Oh!” She smiled, “Well now that I know what he looks like, let me go check the new receipts.”  She scurried off.

 

Standing there with the big book of death, I thought about my dog.  He never had a song.  Everybody who’s been in my life for any time has a song.  MyEx has a couple of them. Cosmo didn’t have one.  My mind grabbed at whatever it could, trying to give him one.  That didn’t work well; it clutched at what I’d just heard in the car: Alice in Chains, “Them Bones.”

 

Some say were born into the grave…

 

Hmmm, not quite the happy ant march I was digging for. Maybe Cosmo doesn’t need a song. I opened the book.  While I’m flipping through ledgers of dogs, four paws to the grave, I see movie flashes of my pup’s life. His first poop inside, his first doggy kisses, the first rose he dug up and laid at my feet.  Cosmo was such a loving dog.

 

He also wasn’t in the book of the dead.  That’s when the little girl returned to let me know he wasn’t in the back either.

 

I went home, where he still wasn’t, and called MyEx.  She promised to call her friend at the Shelter, and post his picture around her office (Cosmo’s picture, not the friend at the shelter’s).  This whole Cosmo quest has felt so strange.

 

The last time somebody ran away, I got a divorce.  I felt alone.  I didn’t have anybody in town I could lean on, and my few friends out of state proffered the pat-pat of condolence and were as “there-there” for me as they could be.

 

Now my dog is somewhere partying it up, and everybody is here, even the people who made me feel the loneliest. That’s just surreal. I am a melting clock in a Dali painting, cuz this isn’t natural for me. People I know, people I don’t, they’re all grabbing a chunk of rubber tree pot and lifting what they can.  It’s so different from the divorce. 

 

Is it me?  Is it my perspective? Is it really how things are?  Divorce, nobody really wants to dirty their hands, but when it comes to pets, everybody is ruffling all the fur they can.  I’m not complaining--at least not from this vantage point.  I can assure you, when I was going through the divorce, I was blog-logging reams of complaints.

 

Right now I’m just happy for the support.  And when I see ads for the Cosmo-esque pups I feel a little more hopeful.

 

That’s why this one I hit pretty hard:

 

German Shepherd or German Shepherd mix was hit and killed on the 215 South in Riverside. Sorry.

 

I replied with mixed emotions and high hopes.  That’s how life is for me. I have never hoped that I have not found my dog more in all my life.