An old one but one I've been requested to post for a while now. this was written a few years ago, before my now departed and sorely missed pooch passed on. I sent it as email and didn't keep a copy but a good mate up the coast thought to save one and sent it to me, so without further ado.....
The adventures of Gagboy and flatudog!
My morning started pleasantly enough, the clock woke me to the soothing
voice of Ted Hawkins, and after a strong coffee and some toast I was feeling almost human. Perhaps it was that having caught up on some sleep I woke quickly and for once didn’t need to be dragged from unconsciousness. The way a hardy back molar is dragged from a jaw (ie with suffering, considerable resistance and the need for strong drugs!)
I made my lunch, got in my washing and still had some time before I had to leave for work. At that point I remembered a guest had mentioned that my dog Cusith was a little on the nose last time they were over.
She can get that way. Being a dog that hates bath time she seems to
know every trick in the book to avoid suds and water, from disappearing from the house to feigning cleanliness. I’ve even noticed how often I intend to wash her only to find by the end of the day I haven’t got around to it. I suspect she knows some deep mental interference discipline known only to Tibetan Lamas, Jedi knights and aged dingoes!
Anyway as I had time I figured now was the perfect opportunity to give her a quick tubbing!
Now Cusith and I go back a long way, and I learnt many years ago that
washing her involved a serious transfer of water from the dog onto the
human. She seems to shake at such times as to make sure I also get
soaked so I figure I’ll beat her at her own game and wash her in the shower. That way I’m already wet and can’t get wetter. Cunning huh? Anyway I summoned the pooch who reluctantly slunk into the bathroom with a look of dread, and prepared to lift her into the shower. At these times she seems to get a lot heavier and lower to the ground than at any other. Thankfully my martial arts training covered basic ki use and the like.
“Your Jedi mind tricks won’t work on me dingo!” I said as I lifted her into the shower.
I washed quickly and then set about working shampoo into her coat. The
water coming off her turned from clear to the color of the Brisbane river after rain. Yep she had definitely been due a wash!
Then it happened. From parts unknown came a horror beyond imaging! It
was as if the very air curdled and went rank. Dingo had let loose the ultimate in silent but deadly botty burps and as its first lethal tendrils assailed my nose my eyes darted fearfully around the shower to see if perhaps I hadn’t noticed a decomposing cow on first inspection. But no, this was worse! Mere death couldn’t have produced such an up wafting of decay and pestilence as this.
This had presence! This had a developed atmosphere of threat and oppression that could have evacuated a small village!
I had wondered if she could truly be the source of such a smell, but as
I looked down through the sickened air I saw the rotten bitch was
smiling!
I was further amazed she had produced this silently, given its stench
I’d have thought it would have taken a months orchestrated chanting and human sacrifice from a team of black robed cthullu devotees to unleash something this evil into the world!
This really was beyond description, it was as if all those months she
had perhaps not been simply licking her butt but recycling this latest
piece of work, fermenting and maturing it till it reached its full and devastating potential.
I started dry retching; a tile dove from the wall and hit me on the
foot. My god this thing had physical powers, it was like the poltergeist of pong!
I snatched up the washer I’d been using on her and stuck it over my
face like an Elizabethan nosegay! Better a nose full of dog suds than that stench! But no, there was no relief! It must have been crawling into my sinuses via my ears, or perhaps mere physical barriers were unable to contain it. For there it was, faintly at first, like the silent testament of a hundred dead things coming my way. I had visions of an innocent eyed child with a serious look saying “I smell dead people…..”
ARRGGHHHHH I howled, then realised with fear that breathing out air
could only lead to the inevitable…. The need to breathe in!
I swung the shower rose towards the dingo and gave it to her full
blast. I needed to put anything between me and that stench.
She was still smiling and I wondered if I should drop to the floor like
firemen do in a smoke filled room. Surely she couldn’t be smiling if
she too could smell that filthy stench? But then, half crouch I realized that perhaps it was waiting, clinging to her bum in poised ambush? It was thick enough to cling!
Perhaps there was another like it in there? The mother load? Cusith didn’t look smaller than when she’d entered. Then again I don’t remember her looking swollen or distended when I lifted her in.
Still, this wasn’t the time to ponder the tardis like qualities of my dog’s bowels.
No the need for air was growing and since there was nothing left in the
bathroom worthy of the name I knew my only hope was to run for it! If I
didn’t breathe soon I’d pass out and be unconscious in that room,
helpless, vulnerable and completely in its power! Fear gripped my heart as the unmentionable foulness assailed my nostrils. Dropping the false
security of the washer I turned off the taps and fled! I grabbed a towel on the way out and burst outside onto the veranda sucking air with a noise like the call of a bull moose in reverse. Cusith was close behind and ducked past me into the garden.
I stood at the top of the stairs waiting for the dizziness to pass and
clutching my towel around me.
A close escape! I’d barely made it out intact and had to give it half
an hour before I’d steadied my nerves enough to attempt a concerted attack to shift the damn thing. I had a bandana over my nose and whole can of air freshener before I ventured back in there. It was wafting in a corner and put up quite a fight! It was like a western gunfight crossed with a scene from the exorcist all in one. Damn ugly business!
I think next time I’ll hose her……from a distance……upwind!
