Digression #1: Adventures in dog bathing

The day before yesterday was a big one. I decided to take the wee doggie to the park that we now live a block away from. Having never taken her off the leash without The Other around (she's her dog, not mine), I was a bit tense. However, the Pie had no worries other than one all pervasive question: "where's my ball?!"

I walked around the park (named after a certain Admiral) looking for an appropriate spot for the hound to be released. Being Oregon, there was a bit of mud on everything, so the goal was to find the least soiled. When that failed, I released the pooch with a resounding "Damn the mud, full dog speed ahead!" and a hefty toss of a well worn tennis ball. With that, the canine Drayton was off.

After a mere twenty minutes the little Chubkins was pooped and decided she needed to find the closest mud puddle and wallow like some sort of furry black pig. A sight it was to behold. Such joy, such happiness...such mud. I was going to have to give her a pretty hefty bath before I let her free in the apartment. Of course, this meant taking a bath with her, as she likes the tub about as much as her human counterparts of a similar age (five).

Anyhow, I got her home and wrangled her into the bathroom, managing to get her vest-esqe harness off while simultaneously untying my shoes. After getting myself ready (apologies for the mental image forthcoming) by stripping down to the boxers, I lifted her tubby dog butt into the tub.

Here's where the fun started. I got the water going to the appropriate degree, grabbed the shower wand thing (we have one of those, it's nice) and dropped it to the floor. My plan was to stand above her, holding her still using my legs. Yes, that was the plan. What actually wound up happening was a two-hundred forty pound wishbone being nearly snapped in half over the edge of a porcelain bathing apparatus. If, in recent memory, there has been an appropriate time for a slow-motion "Nooooooooooo" this was it.

So there I was, pants-less and falling into a tub. My left foot, in the tub, had slipped. My right, on the floor, was solid. The pooch looked terrified (and rightly so), quickly shimmying to the far reaches of the basin. With some quick thinking and the vaudevillian grace of Fatty Arbuckle I was able fall into the tub rather than onto the edge, thereby saving all centrally located giblets but damning my tailbone. However this led me to be sitting in a tub partly full of muddy water, with a scared-to-death looking dog in front of me. To her credit, she quickly overcame the momentary horror and came over to give me an "are you ok?" lick to the face.

As I was already soaked, I realized it would be easiest to just do the bathing from right there on the tub floor. So, shower wand in one hand and dog in the other, I made it happen. In the process I'm sure I got a solid coating of flea and tick shampoo - so at least I got that going for me.

Luckily, my butt made it out alive. No bruises, no bumps. Beyond the obvious pain aspect it was good that nothing happened, as I can't imagine how terrible it would be to be unemployed and literally not be able to sit on my ass (as that's the one thing I'm entitled to whilst not having a job).

The final tally: Me 1 - Tub 0

Take that, bathtub!