Beauty
Yet another piece on canines in the Philippines -
Recently, when my cousin crashed his grey Mitsubishi Lancer into a van on his way to the province of Dagupan, everybody wanted to know if the dogs were okay. “How’s Beauty?” they asked, and by Beauty they meant the flea-infested black ogre with eternal eye discharge, an abnormally short tail, and a penchant for leaving golden excremental souvenirs where people are most likely to step on them, like the garage or right in front of the doorway. Beauty had just given birth, you see, three animals just as hideous and annoying as the mother, only in junior sizes.
The dogs were safe (though a bit traumatized according to Auntie Josie). My cousin left without a scratch. His car suffered the most damage, with the two doors on the right side getting mangled like Joseph Estrada’s English. I was invited to go with my cousin to Dagupan and enjoy a little fishing break and obviously I would have been on the passenger seat when the accident happened but the gods, I guess, had successfully interceded again.
Why hadn’t I gone? Well, first of all, I was expecting mail from the US Post Office (books). Secondly –and this still rings true–, there really isn’t much to do at my cousin’s newly constructed terracotta-roofed quarters but fish and drink and sleep and idle away. Last but certainly not the least of reasons, I didn’t want to ride with the dogs, no matter how cool that sounded. They are better off now and happy in the province, no longer littered beside the slipper rack, but I can still detect unmistakable traces of Beauty’s very funky smell, right where she used to do most of her barking. And this makes me want to throw up on my father’s office desk. How can the ghost of a dog who isn’t even dead haunt a person so terrifyingly?
That said, I like Mitzie and her daughters (below) - well, sometimes.
This post is just too funny, Migs!
Thanks, Mia! Whew! I thought no one would ever comment on this one.