You moved to a new city five months ago and you haven’t made any friends yet, so you spend a lot of time at home drinking alone, which you hate. You’re really lonely and you feel awful just sitting there at your kitchen table drunk with no one to talk to or raise your glass with or take a swing at. The only other living thing in your house is your dog, Larue.
Tonight you’re going to spike Larue’s water dish with a little bit of whiskey. Not too much, just a few drops to symbolically ordain him as your drinking buddy. Larue will lap it up, and then he’ll sit by you and listen while you talk to him like a pal.
“How about that game today, Larue,” you’ll say. “Those fairies got trounced.”
Larue will pant, and you’ll say, “Oh, you want another? Well I’ll buy.” Then you’ll pour a little more whiskey into his dish, which he’ll again drink down very quickly.
“This summer ever gonna end? Sweatin’ my ass off,” you’ll say to Larue, and he’ll answer with a bark.
“Another round sounds good to me too.” Larue will have drunk up all the water in his dish, so you’ll pour him a small helping of straight whiskey. He’ll drink it in seconds.
“Not a fan of that porker Jonah Hill. He was pretty much over before he started, ain’t that right Larue?”
Larue will lay down at your feet and whimper a bit. You’ll pour yourself another glass, and without thinking about it you’ll go and fill up Larue’s bowl to the rim, all the while singing the teenage wasteland part to “Baba O’Reilly.” Larue will go and lap up a good bit of the whiskey, then he’ll fall asleep next to the bowl. You’ll fall asleep with your head in your arms on the kitchen table.
When you wake up tomorrow morning, hungover like any other Tuesday, you’ll find Larue still asleep next to his bowl. You’ll kick him gently and his limp body will just lay there. You’ll shake Larue, but he won’t wake up. Then you’ll see his water dish full of brown whiskey and you’ll remember what an idiot you were last night.
You’ll rush Larue to the vet’s office, fearing you killed him. Your vet will tell you that Larue went into a coma.
“What happened yesterday?” she’ll ask.
You’ll burst into tears. “I was lonely and wanted someone to drink with!”
Your vet will hold you in her arms and tell you to never do that again. “From now on, if you need someone to drink with, you call this number,” she’ll say. “It’s my home number.”
“Really?” you’ll ask.
“I’m only thinking about the dog’s well being,” she’ll say.
You’ll thank her, and you’ll call her that very night. She’ll invite you to her place and you’ll share an evening that one day you’ll tell your grandkids about. “He was everything I hated in a pet owner, and yet there was something so adorable about him I just had to come up with a reason to get him to call me,” she’ll tell the family when she’s 81 and you’re already two years dead of natural causes.
Happy The Dog That Drank Himself Into A Coma Day!
