Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Booger Butt and the Wong's


We live in a nice neighborhood. Quiet...peaceful.Meet our neighbors across the street. Jerry and Susan Wong. They are restaurateurs. Very well known and respected in town. Their people founded the town. Chinese people who built the railroads. They are salt of the earth. Susan was Miss Hong Kong 1950 or 60 something. Jerry is older by 15 or more years. They have been married many years. They have no kids. No pets. They are highly respectable and prominent people. They have art works from Paris, some of which are of more value than their lovely home. They are a refined couple. One would never put their elbows on the table if eating at the Wong's.
Etiquette is the Gospel in their home and rightly so. One's home is one's castle. Everything has it's place. If nowhere else in the world, Feng Shui is found in this house.
I have a dog, a West Highland Terrier, called Booger Butt. She is 8 people-years old now, though she has slowed down as of late, she once was a rebel. A rebel with a zeal for life and high adventure! She's a spirited dog. A real independent thinker-stinker of a dog.
Let's go back to the year 2000 and Booger Butt is 6 months old. Booger Butt is full-on into her growing puppy status and is developing quickly. If she can get out the front door, she will bolt. It's her thing. Then she runs down the street having a great time, doing whatever the hell she wants, refusing to come back to me, and no matter how sweetly I call her...she ain't buyin' it. It took a while but I figured her out. I finally figured out that if I scolded her by saying stuff like "Ya heathenistic flea bitten rotten dog! Ya pointy-eared Science Diet munching pig! You're gonna burn in a lake O' fire if you don't get your AKC registered booty home right now! You're gonna burn in hell alright...rubbing your butt on the Devil's carpet tryin to put your smoking ass out like a cigarette in an ashtray! Oh... I guess I could of just said, "Bad dog", and she'd a come running for home, but that ain't me. Oh well, one early morning my wife (Kim) opens the front door and Booger Butt bails. She runs across the street to the Wong's. Now why-oh-why did Jerry Wong have to come out of his front door at that particular time to get his morning newspaper... I'll never know. Maybe it was just Chinese joss (luck) or perhaps Booger Butt was a Chinese Foo Dog in a previous life. Regardless, Booger Butt had turned-and-burned like a little doggie jet fighter headed directly between the legs of the elderly Jerry who was bent- over, about to pick up the paper. Kim too was running , in hot pursuit of Booger Butt, and heard Jerry GASP! Now Booger Butt had compromised the safety and security of the Wong's pet & kid free zoned home. I don't know how she did it, but quicker than a Korean can count to 4 (one Mrs Shippy...two Mrs Shippy...etc) Booger Butt found Susan Wong's bed in that big old house, with Susan fast asleep in it. Booger Butt then jumped up on the bed and began licking Susan Wong's face. Before Jerry Wong and Kim even entered that puppy-penetrated doorway, Susan began to scream! YAAAAAAAAA! And then I think she began saying some kind of Chinese curse words between yelling YAAAAAAAAA! at the top of her lungs. Poor Susan. I think she had never uttered a bad word in her life until that cold nosed and pink tongued morning. Kim apologized profusely and Susan Wong, classy lady that she was, quickly pulled herself together and said, "You have a very friendly dog".

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a cute dog. My best friend has a westie. It's not dog, it's people.

Pets are great. We had a cat once. He was a golden striped long-haired Maine Coon. Proto-cat. There was never a cat better. He could hunt and catch and skin a squirrel. He'd leave their pelts at our doorstep as gifts. He would ride around on our shoulders like a golden parrot. He was people.

Cats didn't get much better than him. So being young and foolish, I thought all yellow striped cats were good. So I went to a pet store and picked a stripey yellow kitten out of the basket. (Note, it turns out yellow striped cats are the sociopaths of the cat world. They are the cat most likely to have to be pulled out of a tree by firemen. They could climb down themselves, but it's more fun to make the big red truck come out and inconvenience everyone.)

Long story short, this cat was a nutburger. It would steal stuffed animals off of sister's bed and drag it under the bed like a kill, making growly noises all the way. Just because.

A couple years later my youngest sister brought home another yellow stripey kitten. It was her gift from her boyfriend. Mom cried. Now I know why. She knew that boyfriend and daughter would be long gone and she'd still have CrazyAss StripeyCat tearing away at her antique sofa and walls and running inside the front door and demanding to be let out the back door 20 times a day for years after. One day about 13 years later the vet told my mom the cat was insane and gave her permission to put it out of its misery.

To this day I refuse to let teenagers in my house bring small furry things home. My crazy cat and moron dog are enough.

Well, back to Nutburger. For hobbies, he'd take down CrazyAss StripeyCat several times a day, wrestling him to the ground like a lion takes down a wildebeest. Just because.

He'd yowl for no reason. He was unpleasant and lacked the affection gene. And he never died. We began to refer to him as Methuseleh.

The grandkids came along over the years, arriving long after he should have died. They knew to fear him. Babies would go to pet him and get scratched. Just because.

They called him "That Mean Scary Cat" and "That Icky Old Cat." Eventually he looked like Bill the Cat, but without the necktie or the sense of humor.

He'd disappear at night and not eat his food. Mom grew hopeful that he might be dying. Nope. After several months, a neighbor came over to complain. Seems she finally traced his path back to the old homestead. He had been going over to her house down the street and letting himself in the pet door and eating her cat's food. Probably drinking the old man's beer and using their cat box too.

How do you tell Methuseleh he's not welcome to let himself into the neighbor's home and eat their cat food?

And what kind of wimp cats did they have that they couldn't kick a 15 year old cat's rickety ass?

He'd probably take them down like a wildebeest.

Yeah, eventually he died. Just because.

So that's my story of pets who let themselves into neighbors' houses.

Deltabravo

Maeve said...

There is a reason why terriers are afectionaly called "terrorists".
Because they are holy terror for sure!
And I can identify with Deltabravo.
Orange striped cats must be the crazy bunch that at least has the affectionate gene that yellow ones don't. We have since remaned our kitten "Satan's Little Helper" for that very reason he is BAT SHIT CRAZY.

pamibe said...

I LOVE it! Booger Butt is just a GREAT dog. Gotta love those terriers!!

JihadGene said...

Deltabravo-

Great story!!! Ruv it Looong Time!!!I'm posting it now!JG

JihadGene said...

Maeve- I never knew this about orange striped cats. I do now!

Pam- What can I say? I ruv my Westie!

Anonymous said...

For genetics reasons that cover coat color, 75 percent of orange cats are male. 100% of them are crazy.

Deltabravo

PS Thanks for liking the story

Richmond said...

Booger Butt is a major cutie!!

Kanani said...

Funny Story! Now, how did you come up with the name Booger Butt?