Dead Pets and Other Stories About Life...

Mork & Mindy…the dogs, not the show.

edgeyville — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 08:59:06 +0000

Mrs. Young was fortunate enough to baby-sit us enough times to meet our next set of pets but then went where ever baby-sitters go when you are not using them.

mork replicant

The good news was my parents had once again decided we were ready for dogs and brought home two cocker spaniels. Two dogs. Brother and sister. Mork and Mindy. Having two dogs again was great and these two were tons of fun for us, but not really for each other. Being brother and sister, they fought alot and managed to tear up several parts of the house in the process. Now at this time my mom had finished her schooling and become a full fledged Interior decorator. This house was one of her first projects. Dad was still in construction. Within weeks, our comfy home became a museum with all of Barbs work on display, leaving very few spaces (outside of our rooms) as public domain. Unfortunately Mork and Mindy didn’t appreciate Mom’s hard work. The decision was made to give one of them away. Mork was extremely cute and had this strange way of looking at you that instantly melted your insides. Mindy on the other hand was extremely fat with a tiny tiny head and sort of resembled an anteater. This was unacceptable. Mindy had to go. Shallow yes…but we were kids and a cool dog was an essential accessory at the time.

mindy replicant

Now don’t be sad for her because leaving our family turned out to be the best thing that could happen. She lived longer than any other pet and actually died of natural causes. Mork on the other hand went on to become our most famous dog.

You see, part of Mork’s appeal was that he was dumb. Very, very dumb. Beyond dog dumb. He had the distinction of being the only dog we ever had to be hit by a car and survive. A statistic he abused to its fullest, because he got hit by cars alot. We used to live beside a school and Mork had a tendency to follow us there and then follow other kids around. Especially when they were crossing the street to go to the local candy store. But he never quite figured out the reason the kids were running was because of the fast moving vehicles quickly approaching. The kids always made it. Mork wasn’t so fortunate. I remember the first time he got hit… and the second… and the third. Every time you would hear a large screech, followed by a large dog style scream and then Mork would be sitting on the side of the road with this “fuck me” look in his eyes. Everybody would come running, including at least one heroic doctor who would quickly realize his years of medical training meant shit when it came to dogs. Mork would be okay after some comforting and attention to his wounds (usually just a wicked bump on the head) but he never quite learned his lesson. He would not only follow kids home, but also bikes, and sometimes even cars. The first time he did this we got a call during supper from someone who lived at least 10 miles away. They asked us if we knew who Mork was and would we like him back anytime soon. My dad was at work and Mom had supper on the table, so mom came up with the brilliant idea of having this family stick Mork in a cab. This was such a good idea that it became common practice. Cab drivers would show up with this “are you serious?” look on their face and then shuffle this confused looking creature back to his home. At one point we actually had an account with Halton taxi just for Mork and he became a very popular customer because he didn’t say much, he was house broken(except for that one time), and he was rumored to be an excellent tipper.
There was another quality that added to his fame. He had no sense of direction except towards me. I remember being in the middle of morning chapel at school and seeing him follow the choir down the aisle. Then, from the back of the chapel I’d hear Mr. Nightingale, the school’s very British junior headmaster shout, ” Edgecombe, get that dog out of here.” Then there was mealtimes. In the middle of grace Mork would wander down the aisle straight to my table and once again “Edgecombe, get that dog out of here.” Mork even made the school video and I didn’t ! Needless to say, like Tia, Mork experimented with porcupines. On several occasions. Until Halloween…

It was Halloween night when Mork’s curious nature and lack of smarts(or too many cars to the head) got the best of him. He got out that night. He had such a field day with all the kids he could follow he never came home. A week passed. Than a month. Even Halton taxi had no idea where he was.
Winter came. Pools were closed for the season. The air froze as February and March passed. One day in April we heard screaming. It was from next door. In the remaining water in the corner of our neighbors pool was a large blob like figure. If you’ve seen CreepShow 2, it kind of looked like that floating garbage bag creature that devoured humans and ducks. This might help…
When you get home tonight, take a piece of bread and put in a bowl of water. After about one minute try to pick it out with your hands. A soggy bread like object was now decorating the bottom of the Kirk’s pool. We never really had solid proof that the figure was Mork. I’d like to believe he’s still roaming the Earth, kind of like a retarded Lassie, but the guy who scooped him out was pretty damn sure this Rorschach blob used to be our dog. It was very sad…

Monogamous Masturbation…

edgeyville — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:53:14 +0000

Been in Muskoka since Sunday and as per expected, it’s a place where I am at my happiest, or perhaps just my safest. You see, I can’t tell if one feeling begets the other or if this is truly my last place of happiness? Maybe those are two feelings that go hand in hand for most people…happy and safe.
Is safe a good thing or does it mean we are no longer challenging ourselves and therefore no longer living life to its best or most extreme? I pose this question because as I get older I know that my decisions should be made based on what will make me the most happy person I can be, yet it seems that too often the happy choice may also be the safe choice which leads me to believe that as we get older, fears set in that guide to make choices based on what we either consciously or subconsciously feel is the safest choice…
I love or am in love with a woman whom I have been dating for almost 7 years. She wants marriage and kids and has been very verbose about this feeling for several years now and I find myself wondering why I can’t make the same decision as easily as she seems to? My only other long term relationship was also 6 and a half years so I don’t think it’s a coincidence that albeit more than a decade later, here I am in the same place I was in my early 20’s yet I am on the precipice of 40 and can’t seem to make the life-long commitment that she yearns for and obviously deserves after 6 and half years of dating and living together. While I have many concerns about making this commitment to her I also fear the concept of being single again at 39 and having to start the whole dating thing all over again. As I take this time away from her in a mildly remote part of Canada that I was raised in I find myself teetering back and forth with the decision making process. I have been in this place many times before over the past decade and no matter how certain I feel when I return to Los Angeles, its only a matter of days after returning that I end up back into my old patterns and lost in the LA haze of indecision and perpetual adolescence.

So what does all this have to do with masturbation?

As I woke with the normal male morning wood I knew I had to take care of things before starting my day. You see, I am getting a massage today from a relatively cute masseuse and the last thing I want is to sprout during the session causing a large level of discomfort for both parties involved. Sure, if this was the full-release/happy ending type of massage this wouldn’t be a concern but I don’t usually frequent those establishments and today is not one of those places. So the only thing I could do to remedy this concern was to take care of things by myself before starting my day. I am currently on medication that makes this process a little more difficult if not downright impossible at times so this morning I had to work extra hard to do the job right. As I fingered through all my mental images, memories, and fantasies I found that nothing seemed to help get the job done and as time continued to pass the only thing I was accomplishing was minor friction burns. This was a little upsetting…

For most men, masturbation is a time when they can experience anything they have imagined without the guilt of infidelity. But for me the mental images must be, at the very least, attainable in reality in one form or another. By that I mean I have to choose a scenario involving someone I know or may have seen on a bus somewhere and the circumstances have to be within the realm of my own reality. In other words, Angelina Jolie, albeit hot and sexy, could never be a deposit in my spank bank. Naturally, in a perfect world it would be nice to be able to use my present partner for all these occasions but since I don’t cheat and never plan on cheating I prefer to find scenarios that don’t involve her sometimes as it helps spice up our actual love-life while quelling any of those desires us men get when imagining what things would be like with a different partner. So by age 39 you’d think I had seen enough and met enough woman that simply running through the mind’s rolodex would be more than enough to find that perfect scenario or situation to help solve this mornings problem…wrong.

So here I was, sweaty from the effort and frustrated with the results, searching for the one mental image I needed to complete the job and start my day. Finally, I hopped out of bed and grabbed my laptop, the modern man’s portable personal customized porn magazine…

Now, despite the fact that I have numerous pictures and videos outlining various fantasies I have built up in my head over the years I found myself on this particular morning drawn towards a number of pictures my girlfriend allowed me to take of her from one of our vacations. So here I was with the world of porn literally at my fingertips and yet I was drawn to pictures and thoughts of the one person who can fulfill my sexual needs in the real world. I won’t go into all the messy details but I will say that within minutes of open up various pictures of my woman I was able to complete the job with maximum satisfaction. Upon completion I found myself wondering if this was some sort of sign that this was the woman for me and I no longer needed to think about the possibility of ever being with someone else. Is it possible that some of us men are so innately built for monogamy that even when seeking sexual gratification on our own we still find it necessary to stick to what we know and stand by the side of our mates? I know that after spending time with my girlfriend that I will find the need to search the net for perverse scenarios that live a little outside of our sexual box but when it comes down to the nitty gritty of it perhaps she is the only one for me both in reality and in my mind.

Is it possible that I have taken monogamy to the next level and can only find true sexual satisfaction both in my head and in my bed with the one person whom I am currently connected with and all other forms of satisfaction will always fall to a close second? I know I don’t believe in cheating and would never do that to the woman I love but have I taken this to a whole new plateau by becoming one of few men who despite their active imaginations can only find pleasure with one partner whether on my own of by their side?

Have I learned where my heart really lies through this simple and frequent act?

Am I so lost in her that even masturbation has become an act of monogamy?

Before I can say this for sure I will have to try a few more times to make sure I have satisfied the needs of the scientific method and truly proved my hypothesis to be accurate. It’s a rough job but if its truly for science than its my duty to complete this experiment from beginning to end before coming to an accurate resolution that will satisfy both myself and the scientific community…

Baby-sitters, hot coffee, and an 11 year-old pee-pee…

edgeyville — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:40:15 +0000

We’ve had lots of pets. But the best way for me to gage what pets I had and when, is to remember the baby-sitter at the time. Because, not only did we go through alot of pets, we also went through alot of baby-sitters. With Tia & Maria was Mrs. Worm. She was a mean old lady who made us eat alphabet baloney and always threatened to give my ass a lickin’, which I pictured as her literally licking my ass. This frightened me. With Tia post-Maria death was Sigi, one of our many baby-sitters imported from Germany. Sigi was special, not only could she speak almost zero English, but she was also 99% deaf! Throughout our budgies was Stewart, our only male baby-sitter, therefore the coolest(for a boy). Next was Briggitta, another German import who only came here to find a husband. She was the first and only baby-sitter to take us for a walk in an evening gown, full make-up, and heels(of course as an adult this sounds hot as hell but as a child it was just strange). Next came Wallburger Benz, (German), marking the first naked female breast I’d ever seen(by accident, not through some seductive evening as I’d hoped after watching PRIVATE LESSONS multiple times) and I can’t forget Cathy Ardedo, our personal favorite, because she brought us presents. At the end of our hamster blood bath came Mrs. Young, who is fortunate enough to have the distinction of being the only baby-sitter I’ve ever seen completely naked, excluding of course baby-sitters I’ve dated…other peoples baby-sitters.

Now without sounding mean-spirited I just want to say that she would not have been my first choice of sitters to see fully naked, not even above Stewart. You see, Mrs. Young was in her late sixties and her girlish figure was well on its way south by this time. Immediately after I viewed her naked body I shared my experience with Dave Strachan, a friend who slept over alot. This was followed by Mrs. Young yelling,” Scotty, you shouldn’t talk so loud, I can hear everything you’re saying.”
She also has the distinction of being the only baby-sitter ever to see me naked, excluding my diaper stage. And this is a painful truth…

It was a chilly Saturday afternoon. Spring was nowhere to be found as winds whisked through the air. I was 11. I rode with Mrs. Young while she ran some errands. We decided to stop and pick up some lunch at Dairy Queen. As Mrs. Young tore out of the DQ drive way, I looked down in the box I held and noticed that her large ,black coffee had just spilt. I thought she should know. “Mrs. Young, your coffee…ahhhhhhh!” I pushed the box onto the floor sending food everywhere and furiously rubbed my now hot coffee soaked groin area through my sweat pants, thinking that this would somehow ease the pain. She began to freak out in some scottish demon tounge while I was yelling and screaming at what was the worst pain I had ever felt. Not to mention extensive fear from where this pain was coming from. She kept driving and told me to show it to her. I was 11. This was not going to happen. She insisted that I let her look at it because she used to be a nurse.

You know, throughout my entire life it has always seemed that whenever a medical problem or crisis arose at any time, suddenly everyone has some kind of medical training. I’m a nurse, I know first aid, I’ve seen ER, whatever! They just suddenly feel that they are now qualified to handle the situation.

After a little more convincing and my realization that if she didn’t help I may never make babies,
I peeled off my track pants. And with them, my first layer of skin. Which was now flapped across each leg. This did not amuse me. I had now hit a whole new level of hysteria. Mrs. Young leaned over to touch it ; it being my now useless groin. I pulled away. She may be the first to see it, but she was not going to be the first to touch it! The decision was made to head to a hospital. To alleviate the pain I decided to turn the air conditioner on full(In Canada, in February) and raise my crotch as close to the vents as possible, trying not to look at my sad friend. So you’ve got to picture this old woman driving me the wrong way , down a one way street, in heavy traffic, racing to the hospital while sneaking plenty of peeks at what was left of her coffee. Me with my crotch up against the dash, praying this pain would go away. All of this in broad daylight.
She dropped me off at the ER so she could park. So here I am limping into the ER in nothing but a windbreaker sadly wrapped around what was left of my groin. I’m taken to the first empty room and I’m introduced to my doctor. My female doctor. Needless to say, this was the icing on the cake of a very big cake. The chances are she knew my mom and my burnt penis was about to become the next topic of conversation at the hairdressers where everything was revealed in our small ton of Oakville.
She bandaged up my groin plus a good portion of my waist as well. I was fine according to the doctor. She was great, although she didn’t exactly keep in mind that little boys pee differently than little girls. I of course didn’t realize this either until it was too late. You see she had bandaged me so well, not only could I not pee but it was virtually impossible for me to even find the little guy…

Over time both my pee-pee and my mind healed but to this day I am a nazi when it comes to proper placement of hot drinks while driving…

Me and my gay friends…

edgeyville — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 23:38:38 +0000

Before I delve too deep into this subject I’d like to say that for 40 minutes of my life during the Christmas holidays of 2006 I tried to be gay but it just didn’t take. Sure, according to pop culture, most women have a slight gay phase in college but as with everything, I am a late bloomer and waited until my 30′s to play for the other team…what can I say, I am the beater of my own drum…so to speak.

That is another story for another time but I thought I’d mention it just to fend off the first few people or friends who may find any offense in what I have to say about me and my gay friends…(I know gay includes lesbians but I really don’t know that many lesbians so I thought I’d focus on men for now).

I thought I’d say a thing or two because I am really not sure how to process the feelings I have been having towards my gay friends recently. You see, from a barely straight man’s point of view the gay man has become the better man. Its not a coincidence that they have so many straight female friends, its because they are the ideal of the perfect man. Sure, not all of them, but I choose to deal in stereotypes here because in my opinion and experience, most stereotypes have large resemblances in the reality we live in…

Gay men for the most part take better care of themselves, dress better, socially interact with flair, smell friggin’ great, and have a strong sense of themselves and how to communicate with others. They work hard, party hard, and love hard…no pun intended on all three counts.

In short, they are a hard act to follow and really remind me of how caveman I really am. Now I do not mean to belittle any of my own innate insecurities that have nothing to do with my GQ-like demi-god gay friends because I know I bring a lot to the table before I even consider blaming others strengths but for the love of pete, could a few of you just be a little imperfect more often…please!

And the advice…they have so much of it too give and most of its pretty good but there is always that self-help book tone that smells a little like Deepok Chopra and Marianne Williamson having a steam bath together.

I am the first to admit how educated most gay men I know are, how else could they have come up for so many sub-categories of their brethren? I am a bear by the way…

I just wish that sometimes some of them didn’t have all the answers, weren’t so happy, and would act a little like a pathetic male sometimes. And for the record, my 40 minutes of being gay not working out had nothing to do with the partner I chose, it was more about not enjoying penis in my mouth…

Self-help…yourself!

edgeyville — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:30:15 +0000

Today I thought I’d wander from the enticing journey of the dead pets in my life to talk about something a little closer to today…

I suffer from depression and have been diagnosed bi-polar, A.D.D., O.C.D., and spent the last 15 or so years on multiple versions of medications supposedly meant to “stabilize” me. This type of life tends to be more of the roller coaster type and much less of the merry-go-round version of steadily walking through a peaceful reality. Along the way I am constantly seeking help from family, friends, strangers, and specialists almost every day as I face the challenge of trying to fit in and carve a life for myself and those I love.

No matter what place I am in or stage of life, there has always been one constant…self-help books. There is always a new way to approach my problems and there is always a best-selling, hardcover, published version of how I could or should live my life better in a way that would help all my concerns disappear. Mom always has Oprah’s latest sent to me by amazon within minutes of the ending of Oprah’s latest life-affirming episode. Each friend can always supply me with the book that changed everything for them. In short, there will always be one more book that apparently holds the secret (no pun intended) to finding the bliss, teaching me my unique ability, or just plain guidance to a happy and successful life…

But…yes, there’s always a but…

After all my reading and research I have discovered that the secret to happiness and success is to write a book about the secret of happiness and success. The one common factor in all these books is a successful author that has convinced the publishing world that they have all the answers to life’s many questions. I too would feel in control if I had copious amounts of money coming in from my latest manuscript on how collecting shiny rocks and praying to solar systems had helped me find happiness and inner peace along my journey towards death…

Sure, I am a little bitter that while my life still careens out of control my book shelves are filled with all the answers and secrets that others have decided will solve the larger issues of the collective consciousness.

Who the hell has the right to say its all small stuff? Nothing small about cancer. And maybe he is into you but just can’t communicate it as well as you’d like… And as far as secrets are concerned, I have truly believed in a lot of things but that never guaranteed any specific outcome…

Th point is, if you really want to change your life I’m thinking there is no book, pamphlet, or show that can do it for you without your own innate knowledge of what you need to change and what you need to nurture in yourself in order to live the life you’ve dreamed of…and even with that information comes no guarantee of a happy life.

Perhaps its time for me to write The Realist’s Guide To Earthly Survival with such golden rules as #3-lower your expectations, #6-you’re not as cute as you think you are, and my personal favorite # 9-money can’t buy happiness but it will certainly help to entertain you when killing yourself isn’t an option…

It may not make Oprah’s book club but that doesn’t mean it can’t assist those of us trapped in a mediocrity. And I have a feeling I’m not the only one…

My Big Brother, Teddy-bear Hamsters, & reproduction meets ventilation…

edgeyville — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:21:17 +0000

It was the Fall, again. The autumn sounds filled the air, as did the cold rain. With all our birds dead and Christmas coming, Geoff was campaigning for a hamster. Not just any hamster, but a Teddy-bear hamster. These were special because they were extremely fluffy and kind of looked like those Star Trek tribble creatures except they had eyes, ears, mouths, and tails. None of this caught my interests. All I cared about was getting my Oscar Goldman, exchangeable fembot face, exploding briefcase office set.
You see, Geoff already had Steve Austin the Six Million Dollar man , so his life was complete. I really needed Oscar.
For Geoff being an older brother sucked. Whatever he got, I got… in a different color. Sometimes that sucked for me too, I mean its bad enough dressing twins up the same, but it wasn’t until University that mom stopped buying Geoff and I the same clothes.
This particular Christmas it worked in my favor.

The grass was brown. The trees were bare. It was Christmas morning in Ontario. After breakfast we come running down and Geoff freaks out.
Not only did he get one hamster, he got two…or so he thought. As he approached the second cage(fortunately my parents were sober enough the night before not to wrap the actual hamsters), he was stunned to see Scottie on the name tag. This was bad. This was very bad. Of course he should of known, because the second cage was a different color. And to make matters worse, he got the female hamster and I got the boy! Score. A live animal, at my age! Geoff was devastated. Names were debated and settled upon promptly. Geoff’s was to be Veronica, because she was the cuter of Archie’s girlfriends in our dark-haired opinion…plus she had a sexier voice in the cartoon version. I couldn’t decide on a name…until I opened my Oscar Goldman, exchangeable fembot face, exploding briefcase office set. Now the answer was obvious. His name was to be Barney. Named of course after Steve Austin’s best friend, and one of the exchangeable fembot faces for the coolest toy in the world.
These new teddy-bear hamsters turned out to be the most awesome toy yet. And to top it off, it felt really cool when I let him wander between my clothes and body. Keep in mind I was only 9 and didn’t know the social ramifications of such behavior. I’m not talking any Richard Gere stuff. Just some harmless wandering through the sleeves.

We even got one of those balls you put the little guys in so they can wander freely. Oh, and a few notes for any future hamster ball owners: Never kick the hamster ball. Never spin the hamster ball. And never, ever play with them near stairs.
A little while after Christmas my parents went on their standard winter vacation and Geoff and I decided to let Barney and Veronica have a sleepover. Now at the time it seemed like everything had gone fine until a little while later Veronica got sick for a while and then one morning she had multiplied! Geoff and I thought this was the coolest! My parents had paid for two hamsters and we now had 12! What a deal! We had to try this again.

My parents weren’t nearly as excited. Not only did they now have 12 smelly creatures for us to wreak havoc with, but they also had to explain to us how this had happened. I think the hardest part for my mom was explaining why Veronica had 10 babies while she (mom) was only capable of having one kid at a time. Dad refused to comment.
Now there is no way we were going to be allowed to keep all of them. For the next little while, whenever we needed to give a present, our friends got big boxes with tubes sticking out of them. It did not take long before these same friends did everything they could to stop us from dumping Barney & Veronica’s offspring in their unwelcoming hands. So we still ended up with 6 or 7 which meant buying all those really cool cage extensions with all kinds of tubes and mini penthouse apartments and a years supply of wood shavings. Now these critters may be small but they smell big! The problem with having this many hamsters is when you clean their cages their is no where to really put them so we would just let them wander around our rooms…big mistake. I’ll explain …

My Dad built houses for a living. Almost every house we lived in, he had built, or to be more accurate, was still in the process of being built. Usually until we moved. This meant living without any covers to the hundreds of ventilation shafts. It didn’t take long before our little furry friends fell on in and began to explore the inner workings of our home. Sometimes they were gone for an hour, sometimes a week. We’d be in the basement and all of a sudden hamster caca would drop on our heads and there would be one of our very hungry and desperate lost friends. Now if you haven’t figured it out yet, these vents are used to heat our home which means eventually they lead to a furnace. A really big, hot, furnace. I can’t remember which hamster found the furnace first but I do remember what they looked like when we pulled them out. Perfectly toasted, lightly buttered sponge cake (just like granny’s)…but stiffer.
This was how most of our remaining hamsters died, including Veronica. This meant we could no longer practice the new mating ritual our mom had so carefully explained(and subsequintly banned). Now Barney was not going to become a victim of the evil furnace so I decided to let him go and join his fellow creatures in the out of doors. Needless to say I was totally unaware of how short his life span would be among these less domesticated creatures. Especially during a Canadian winter…

Mike’s Budgies…

edgeyville — Fri, 30 May 2008 19:04:55 +0000

Suddenly my dad had developed an interest in birds. Now he would have loved a parrot or cockatoo but due to money constraints, all he could afford was a budgie. I don’t know if you have ever had or seen a budgie but it is just about the most useless bird-like thing ever created. It looks like a miniature parrot. When I say miniature, I am talking about 5-6 inches long, maximum. They are pseudo colorful and have no interesting attributes. All they do is eat, shit, flap around their tiny cages, and make a screech-like chirping sound with no redeeming attirbutes. My dad brought one home one night in this tiny box covered with breathing holes and pictures of much more extravagant birds. I remember when he bought the first one I saw the box and pictured this grocery store with an entire shelf covered in these boxes of birds. He always made sure to show my mom in front of us so she couldn’t outwardly express her distaste for this new pet she knew she would end up looking after. Mike would spend hours trying to teach this useless creature how to talk and do tricks, but nothing ever happened. It would just keep chirping away and he would eventually give up and grab a drink.
Happily, we went through several of them. You see, if they ever escaped they’re cage(which was often) they would quickly head for the outside, which usually meant flying full force into one of our many closed windows. (This was one of the only pleasures of having a budgie because a dead budgie is a really cool thing). When they fly top speed into windows they break their neck and their entire body goes stiff except for their now broken neck. At this point we would pick them up and watch their heads flop back and forth. This lead to hours of entertainment, at least until mom found us and made us drop them before we caught dead bird disease. What finally ended my dad’s budgie love was the morning my brother covered the entire kitchen floor in cereal and then let all the birds loose to feed on the corn flakes. They all of course took this opportunity to fly into the windows and break all their necks…

Tia & Maria…the dogs, not the drink. Part Two

edgeyville — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:31:50 +0000

Now Tia was a different story. She not only held on for a while but she also put up with a lot of crap. She never got hit by a car, and we moved to a safer area, at least for dogs, but she does have the distinction of being the first of our dogs to discover porcupines.
We had a summer home about two hours north of Toronto. It was on a lake and surrounded by forests and other cottages. In these forests lived all sorts of creatures like foxes, skunks and porcupines. Now Tia did have a few run ins with skunks, but that’s nothing a tomato juice bath won’t take care of…yes they actually work. But facing off with a porcupine is a different deal all together…
I remember running up to greet her and suddenly noticing what looked like hundreds of spikes sticking out of her nose and mouth. They looked really cool because they were this really neat combination of white and black, and extremely sharp. Tia seemed pretty okay with the whole thing except that her eyes were extremely glassy. I ran next door to grab Aunt Wendy who was an ex nurse, the closest thing to a vet I was going to find up there. She got my mom(no Dads were to be found at our cottage during the week, they were at work) and then she grabbed a pair of pliers and asked me to hold Tia. She said this wasn’t going to hurt much and I thought she meant herself because there is no way she was going to convince me prying out these quills from my dogs nose was going to be a painless procedure.
She then proceeded to pull them out one by one as Tia shook, but remained calm. I guess at this point, Tia knew anything would be better than living the rest of her life with several spikes protruding from her face. When it was all over there was no blood and Tia ran off as if nothing had happened. She never tangled with a porcupine again. I wish I could say that for the rest of our pets.

To thank Aunt Wendy for saving Tia and her face I decided to give her my goldfish that I had at the time. I can’t remember its name but I do remember arguing with the pet shop owner over the fact that this particular goldfish was black and white, therefore making its name a complete denial of its true self. To get this gift ready I put the fish in a cereal bowl and scrubbed out it’s container and all the pebbles inside it, I then rinsed it off, filled it back up, put the fish in and headed for Aunt Wendy’s. By the time I got to the back door my black and white goldfish was floating on the top of the water. Apparently I hadn’t rinsed the bowl well enough and my fish choked on the remaining soap suds. I decided not to give it to her. This is the one pet death I take full responsibility for even though there was no intention…so I guess this would be fish-slaughter of the first degree.

A year or two later Tia developed some kind of kidney disease, at least that’s as specific as my parents got. I went to camp that summer(a standard vacation for my parents) and constantly wrote home asking how Tia was. My parents always assured me that she was fine…she wasn’t. When I got back from camp Tia was dead and I was pissed. This was the first time I realized I couldn’t completely trust them. Them being those figure heads we sometimes call parents. I wanted to hold a funeral and bury the body, totally unaware that a garbage and furnace had done the job for me. It was at this point that my parents decided to take a break from pets…well at least dogs…

Tia & Maria…the dogs, not the drink. Part One

edgeyville — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:06:52 +0000

After a lot of Geoff and I asking when Inky was going to wake up, Mom and Dad brought home two new dogs. After an incredible name experience like Inky, my parents had decided they would name our pets from now on , and no sooner had they said this, then entered our new Corgies, Tia and Maria. I guess you’ve figured out my Dad’s favorite drink by now. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a Corgi before, but there the same dogs as the Queen of England is often seen with…assuming they are still alive, the dogs, not the Queen. This means nothing in the states, but growing up in Canada, people were always saying, “Hey, those are the same dogs as the Queen”. As a kid I had to grasp onto anything I could. Picture the shape of a basset hound , you know, the type of dog Roscow P. Coltrane on The Dukes of Hazzard had. You know, Flash? That kind of shape, with the head of a German shepherd, except much smaller, and in there cases, brown and white. They also had there tails snipped at birth, which I think sucks. Imagine if you had your ass snipped when you were born, or any other parts…
Now at this time, we were living in Mississauga, a city on the outskirts of Toronto.
We lived on a dead end road wedged between a major freeway and a 200 foot drop down to the Port Credit river. So if at any time, Tia or Maria got out of the house, we didn’t have long to find them. And they got out quite often. Remember, this was back when dogs roamed their communities freely and leash laws didn’t exist. Its also a time when alot more kids came home with scars from wandering neighbourhood dogs… It also didn’t help that nobody would ever take us seriously when we told them the names of our dogs. If me or Geoff told somebody, they would think we made it up, and if it was parents searching for the lost puppy, strangers would just assume they were drunk. Our lost dog posters were laughed at and almost always torn down as a joke. Eventually our dangerous living situation got the better of us…or should I say, Maria.
Maria has the distinction of being the only Edgecombe dog to be hit by a car, and killed! Now on this sad day I was not allowed out to see what happened so I felt very left out and lost as to what exactly had happened, but Geoff changed all that as any good older brother would. He decided he would show me exactly what happened to Maria. He went to the fridge and grabbed the biggest tomato he could find and led me down to the basement, a place we seldom went alone. He then pulled our deep freeze out a little from the wall, and wedged the tomato between the wall and the fridge. At this point he pushed the freezer with all his might and squished the tomato sending red guts everywhere and said, “That’s what happened to Maria.” To this day I can see that squashed tomato perfectly and that was the image I had of Maria being hit by a car for my entire childhood. When I eventually saw a dog get hit by a car I realized Geoff had painted a pretty accurate picture…It wasn’t Geoff’s best work as an older brother but it must have sunk pretty deep as I still can’t eat tomatos.

Inky…the dog we never meant to drive crazy

edgeyville — Wed, 28 May 2008 19:52:44 +0000

First of all I would like to welcome all of you here to Dead Pets and other sories about life. Everything I tell you is absolutely true and is accurate as my 30-something year old memory could possibly make it, excusing of course the standard embellishment one always feels necessary to add when telling a story. Over the years of my existence, my family, the Edgecombes have been through more pets than any one family deserves, or should be allowed. The one common factor in all of our pets is that they all died before their time of unnatural, sometime very unnatural deaths. Now we are not an evil family, and we never killed or let an animal die intentionally, they just have a way of dying around us, not others peoples pets, just ours. To help you I will first introduce my family: First we’ve got Michelle or Shelly, who is the youngest, then there is Joelle, who’s younger than me, but older than Michelle. That’s it for girls, next comes me, the infamous middle child, and then there’s Geoff, my older brother of two and a half years, not three, just a mere two and a half. And in charge, therefore most responsible for all damages, are Barb AKA mom and Mike AKA Dad AKA Champ AKA the Big Guy.
I have chosen to tell you about my dead pets in chronological order, and just to set your minds at ease, I presently own and operate 2 dogs and 2 cats, all in good health with every intention of staying alive and dying someday of completely natural causes…And before you grab your cell to hit the PETA speed dial button please trust that I am an animal lover who has never wished evil upon any animals…excluding my neighbours feral collection of cats that recently removed the eyebrows from my cat Jimmy…

It all started when I was about one or two years old with Inky. Inky was this little off white mutt. Kind of a mixture of , well I don’t know but he was about the size of young spaniel with a long tail for his size and kind of a pale miniature golden retriever look, but he definitely had no retriever in him. Now when I was this age Geoff liked to do one of two things with me, either make me laugh or make me cry. With Inky he could do both. You see Geoff had this little game he played that I now chose to call “make Inky insane”.
He would pick up Inky and put him on tables and then push him off…this was to make me laugh. I thought this was hilarious and he would just keep picking up Inky, putting him on top of what ever table he could reach and then push him off again and again. This of course pissed Inky off to know end but that never stopped us. I say us because it did not take long for me to learn by example. And when I couldn’t find a table short enough for me I would simply pick him up and drop him. You see, I just thought he was a toy. This really cool, fully operational toy, until…he went insane.
This is where the crying part comes in.
At one point Inky snapped from this continuous torture, and flipped. He was no longer going to take this, because due to his present lack of stability, he had now learned, he could fight back. First he would wait until we pushed him of, then he would come at us. Soon, we couldn’t even come close to him before he would start freaking out, and since Geoff was bigger and faster, guess who Inky had the most fun with. It was at this point that he was no longer a pet, or even a toy, but a totally psycho dog looking for payback. Needless to say, Inky was on his way to the big sleep as soon as Barb and Mike realized it was me or him, and don’t think this was an easy decision for them, but at least I had thumbs and in the early 70′s it was easier to lose the dog and just slap the stupid kids around until you knocked some sense into them…Did I mention my parents liked to drink?