Cone-head the Dog

At first it was a funny joke. Our six-month-old puppy, Toast, went in for surgery 10 days ago to be spayed. The vet tied this funny-looking plastic cone around her head to keep her from reaching back and biting out the stitches from her wound. Unlike our last dog, Penny, Toast didn’t seem to mind wearing the cone at all. So we thought, either she’s pretty dense, or laid back. We chose to think: “laid-back.” So we joked around with her and stared to call her “Cone-head.” All in good fun, of course. She didn’t seem to mind her new nick-name at all. But as each of the 10 days of “healing time” passed, with minimal exercise each day, she got feistier and feistier.

This morning it wasn’t funny anymore. (Well, maybe it little.)

Our daughter, who was up visiting us this weekend with her boyfriend, came running into our home office with a sick look on her face. She held up her boyfriend’s cell phone and said, “Toast just ate Jeff’s phone!”

Great. I pictured in my mind the both of them traveling back to Chicago, having to turn the dog over on her belly to punch in a phone number whenever Jeff wanted to call someone… and then cuddling up to the dog’s mouth to be able to shout down her throat so that the little microphone could pick up his voice.

Maybe every dog goes through this stage early on. Just to test you, to see how much you’re really willing to sacrifice to let this dog live with you. Our last dog did the same thing. It was when a good friend of ours came to visit. (It always happens when guests come to visit.) Marcia came upstairs in her bathrobe for coffee and breakfast. As we were laughing and talking Penny suddenly appeared, looking a little sheepish, and came up to Marcia to be petted. “What do you have in your mouth?” she asked sweetly… innocently, as she gently reached down to pet her and remove it from her mouth. Her face turned from smiles to frowns when she realized that she was holding what was left of her prescription glasses. Merlajean and I both looked for a hole in the floor to jump into.

That visit cost us $150 bucks for a new pair of glasses and almost a friendship. I have no idea how much this visit from our daughter and her boyfriend will cost us for a new cell phone. The ironic thing is, of course, Toast tries to spend every waking moment next to Jeff's side. I can’t tell if Toast is simply infatuated with her newfound friend from Chicago, or if she's just rubbing it in because she just got by with chewing up his phone and everyone thinks “she’s just a dumb dog!”

Glow Ropes on the 4th

The woman was a little strange. Both my wife and I thought that. But—we both wanted to see where this would go. And make some money too.

The Craig’s List gig that we applied for was to hand out glow-ropes at a park on the 4th of July just prior to the Fireworks. It was straight commission. $.15 on the dollar. Thousands of people would be coming out. Our group would be the only vendors. For a few hours work we could make a hundred bucks or more. Plus—it would be fun. Beside, what else would be doing on the 4th of July? Why not make a little money?

So we drove out to meet with the operator. She ran her business out of her twin-home. It seemed nice enough… a little smallish, I thought, for a business. After waiting forever at her front door and wondering if she was even home, she greeted us and invited us out on the deck for our “interview.” And, oh by the way, “Would we like a glass of wine?” she asked. She had plenty of wine—good wine, since she often did promotions for wine companies. Why not? I said.

My antennae went up a notch however when she brought out a half-corked, half-full bottle of shiraz with a date of 3-24-08 scratched on the label. It was three months old! I wondered exactly what “good wine” meant in her world. But not wanting to offend her—especially since it was free—I uncorked the bottle and poured out a couple of glasses. One for her and one for me. And we all talked. And laughed. And told our stories. And she told hers. I noticed that her eyes had that reddish, sunken-in-look appearance. Her skin was blotchy looking. I guessed that she struggled with alcoholism, especially since she kept ducking inside the house (to take a swig of some hard stuff?).

We filled out some forms and were told to show up at 5:30 on July 4 to meet the rest of the group and receive our final instructions. That was it. Nice to meet you. See you on July 4th. I guess we made the grade. A puppeteer and a church planter. Hawking glow-ropes at the park on the 4th of July. I was already pumped for it.

Well, it didn’t quite turn out the way we pictured it.

We met our fellow hawkers that night: a 24ish-year-old guy who worked as many gigs as he could, making very good money while still living at home; a 26 year old attractive woman, who was already on her third man, had four kids from three different men, but drove a Lexus crossover (what’s wrong with this picture? I wondered); a 26ish-year-old comedian, hoping to make it to the point where she could sustain herself with her stand-up routines, but working gigs until then; the business woman’s boyfriend, a very successful salesman, he told us (but then why was he living in HER twin home, with free rent?); and my wife and me, the straight couple, who somehow didn’t quite fit in but were trying hard to.

I wore my yellow and white striped "Cat-in-the-Hat" hat and started selling the minute I jumped out of the car. The first 30 minutes I couldn’t keep up. But then, everyone had one. The crowd numbers were down from previous years. There were too many of us selling and too few people in the crowd buying. My wife and I raked in a total of $30. When I added up all our training and working hours, I figured that we each made about $1.83 per hour. Before expenses.

Live and learn I guess. It WAS a blast though. My wife and I laughed and joked with our new friends, the Glow-Rope Hawkers, and with the crowd. We had some great conversations. Interacted with lots of kids. Maybe even brought some joy to their holiday. We came in thinking we would develop relationships with whomever we met and worked with. And bring the presence of Jesus with us. And we did.

Yeah… I’d do it again.