So I'm in a meeting today, discussing the most recent emergency to pop up at work, and The Munk calls on the cell. I send her to voicemail, cause I'm in a meeting. So she calls on the land line a few minutes later. This time I answer. She informs me that she has car problems. “There's smoke coming out of my rear tires, and it's making a funny stinky smell. Should I take it to the shop?“ I wasn't really listening, cause I was in a meeting, so I told her to take it to the dealership, where it's still warranteed.
Later on, when I took the time to think about it, I noted a few things:
- “Rear tires“
- Smoke
- Steep Driveway
- Girl
These four things can only add up to one conclusion: Parking brake. So, I called her up, and said “is your parking brake on?“ She immediately got bashful and said “oh... You know, maybe it's on because I was parking in the driveway, cause I couldn't get into the garage cause Danny's car was there and...“ So basically it's somebody else's fault that she drove around with her parking brake on. It's also fun how the entire “round part“ of the car, like the wheel, the tire, the rotors, calipers, all that shit. That's “the tire.“ When I hear that the tire is smoking, I think that means the rubber tire part is smoking, not just that there's smoke coming from the general area of a wheel well. But hey...
Anyway, I tell this story to get us to another story. See, in the first story, The Munk can smell her burning brakes with no trouble. She has a nose, and when it's useful to her, it works. When it comes to her favored son's butt, it does not. See, Clyde has stinky anal glands. That's what you get with discount, side-of-the-road beagle knock-offs. All over the house, he leaves little yellow splatters of ass juice on the carpet. He also stinks. Yesterday it got so bad, something had to be done.
But The Munk was not prepared to accept this. She didn't agree that her son needed his anal glands drained. She didn't really even want to acknowledge that his ass stank, that dogs have anal glands, none of it. She wanted to lay in bed and smirk at me. I tell her: “Sniff the dog's ass. It stinks.” So she goes over, and sniffs his butt. “It smells like a dog's asshole,” she informed me. She felt vindicated, got back in bed, got back to smirking. So, I go and get the other dog, who is a purebred, name brand poodle. The whole of him, including his asshole, smells like strange, dusty poodle, but not the poisonous musk-funk that comes out of Clyde's anal glands. She didn't want to conduct that test, so I had to actually bring the dog over to the bed, grab him by his hind legs, and put his butt where she could smell, while Clyde bit him in the face, and they made wookiee noises at each other. She had to admit that it didn't really smell.
Now, I'm not the one who loses all ability to reason when I hear a sob story about a lost puppy in the Ozarks. After paying $500 to get him cured of the dozen parasitic infections he was sporting, I was feeling like it was her turn to take some responsibility for her charity pup. So, she got to deal with the anal glands. I told her: “He's a beagle, beagles are known to have problems with their anal glands. It stinks, it's gross, and they need to have them drained periodically. Set up an appointment with the vet to have them teach you how.” So she gets on the phone, and has the most deliberately insipid exchange with the vet. “Uhhh, my husband says the dog's butthole stinks, and he needs his butthole checked... I mean the dog, not my husband... Also, anal glands... And he's a beagle... And, whatever.” She just can't believe how stupid I am, how I'm making all this up, and wasting her time levying unfounded accusations at her favorite son.
So, I print this page out, and bring it up to her where she's smirking in bed. She won't read it. So I have to read the whole fucking thing to her, before she'll even begin to take it seriously. I have to go to the vet with her, sit there with her and her baby son, and then when I go to buy the dogs some food, they come in, grab the dog, express his anal glands, and she manages to sneak out of learning how to do it herself.
This is my life on a day to day basis. I have insane dogs, their insane mother, yellow dribbles on my carpet, and none of them listen to me for a fucking second, despite the fact that they clearly, desperately need my help in order to even fucking survive.