In the past couple weeks, a number of absurd events have taken place with no one around to witness them but myself.  Or rather, no one but myself and various dogs.  And since these dogs and cats are themselves veritable walking absurd events, they hardly noticed anything unusual. It falls to me, then, to identify the absurdity and put it in its place.  If I do not, then absurdity may overrun the world (that is, moreso) and permeate my person.  If I don’t get this out of my system, in other words, I risk becoming King of the walking absurd events. Absurd events will flock to me, having heard that they can be as absurdly eventful as they please without repercussions.  They will see me from a distance as a place of refuge, from which they can plan their excursions into the tranquil land in which all people seek to live.  No I say!  Away!  This is my self-exorcism.  Begone silly spirits, and trouble this reasonable boring man no more!  Or trouble him only occasionally, when he needs a giggle or a chuckle or a chortle or a slap.  And then Begone again!

Okay, here goes:

I was walking Hurley, who looks like a cross between a pit bull and a seal.  He acts like neither of these animals though, for his true nature in fact resembles that of a feral hog.  He tries to eat everything he sees, in other words, from leaves to sticks to rocks to poop.  He is forever foraging, and will give anything the benefit of a tasting.  So there we were, walking down the street on a lovely autumn day, radiant colors in the boughs above us and paler matching hues in large piles in the gutters at our side.  I was futily scanning our path for anything Hurley really ought not eat (dead squirrels, discarded pills, other dogs) and he was darting to and fro, nose gliding over the ground, tail working like a rudder through the air. Everything was normal, in other words.  Then Hurley approached a large leaf pile, caught an intriguing scent, and stuck his head in to investigate.  And then, oh absurdity!  Hurley dove into the pile with all the grace and ease with which his seal ancestors dove into the sea.  And then he was gone. Completely consumed by foliage.  And I was left alone, standing on a quite, pleasant street with a leash in my hand, connected to a big round occasionally shaking and snorting pile of leaves.  I looked around for any other witnesses, but there was no one.  Had someone passed by, they might have reasonably asked me why I was attempting to take that particular pile of leaves for a walk.  Quite probably, they would have thought the situation absurd. I agree, good Sir!  Indict not the victim!  Hurley, when he emerged from his crinkly underworld, offered me a happy grin and then resumed his forage.  Je t’accuse Hurley, you silly land-seal.

The next event came disguised as a happy event.  One of my favorite times of any day is when I come back from walking Sally, give her a treat and fresh water, and sit on the ottoman to write her report card, place it carefully on the cabinet and then collapse backwards onto the couch where she lays waiting to have her belly rubbed.  It is our
little ritual, and I’ve even taking to allotting a couple minutes at the end of the visit for a real thorough and satisfying full Sally massage.  She has come to expect it, and will bark at me if I dare to merely pet her before rising to leave.  Sally is, I may have previously mentioned, as soft as a mink and madly, madly in love with me.  If anyone else ever walks her, I am furious.  She’s mine.  In fact, as I see it, my Sal Gal only boards at this place where I pick her up and drop her off, because my apartment doesn’t allow dogs. It’s very kind of the people she lives with to feed her and take her to the vet and walk
her when I’m not around, especially considering that they’ve been doing it for years before Sally and I ever met.  But it doesn’t change the fact that Sally is mine.  Got it?  Mine.  So anyway.  On this particular and peculiar day, I collapsed backwards as usual, expecting a couple of minutes of happy snorting snuggling and then a stubbly beard full of mink fur.  But Sally was particularly excited, and instead of lying on the couch as usual, she got up and stood next to me.  There is a gap of about a foot between the ottoman and the sofa, and over this gap my chin and neck lay like a bridge.  It is over this bridge that Sally then hopped her front paws, coming neatly to rest with her belly on my face, and front paws dangling inches above the ground.  Fortunately I had a chest full of air, or I might have been smothered.  Yet though I did not die, I know now how I would like to if ever given the choice.  I was effectively pinned to the cushions, arms flailing like a maniac and snorting and laughing into Sally’s soft fur belly, while she wiggled and writhed and made little abortive attempts to somehow climb off.  We stayed there a minute, and then I lifted her off and set her back on the couch.  And then re-wrote the report card to read, under the line “my favorite part of the walk had to be,” and wrote, “Lying down on John’s face.”  Just her absurd way of saying “he’s mine.”

The final absurd event happened just yesterday morning while walking Jackson and Poncho.  Both of these dogs are big and ravenous.  Ponch especially dreams only of one day actually catching a squirrel.  So great is his desire to take hold of one, that I doubt he’s given any thought to what he would actually do with one once he had it.  Bite it in two, probably.  Tear its head off, maybe.  I’m sure there would be blood and squirrel unhappiness.  So I do what I can to thwart his life’s great ambition.  It’s cruel I suppose, but then prudence often is.  Yesterday’s walk was proceeding like any other, then, with me leaning back at a 45 degree angle and the two dogs lunged forward with all their might toward those delicious furry milk bones on the trees, our physical forces averaged out to a slow walk, and though the dogs are probably capable of pulling me over and dragging me down the street if they really coordinated and concentrated their efforts, in that moment, like usual, I was in some semblance of control.  Then a squirrel darted across the sidewalk right in front of us.  The dogs surged forward and seemed likely to actually catch the reckless nut muncher.  This too is not unusual:  squirrels occasionally
miscalculate their trajectories, or needlessly abandon good hiding places when panic and dog proximity overwhelms them.  What happened next though was totally unprecedented.  Perhaps assuming that he had made a fatal mistake and had only seconds to live, the squirrel played his final card, so to speak:  he turned to attack.  I don’t know if desperate banzai charges are standard procedure for desperate squirrels, or if this one was just extra frisky.  Perhaps he’d long ago decided that when it was his time to go, he was going to take out as many of those big bully dogs as he could.  Really, I thought fight or flight applied to every other animal in the world before the common squirrel, even a large specimen such as this was.  Jackson and Poncho obviously shared these assumptions, because they stopped in their tracks, added an “l” to their “fight” (right after the “f”) and turned to run.  Sensing his advantage, the squirrel then seemed to do a victory dance.  This consisted of him (or her…how can you tell?) hopping around and spinning in circles in the middle of the sidewalk. Then he twitched and shook.  Then he fell over and seemed to have a seizure.  Whether he was motivated by desperation, elation, rage or rabies I cannot say, but both dogs immediately decided that, on second thought, maybe they didn’t want to catch a squirrel so bad after all. We crossed the street and proceeded in a stunned and humbled silence. We three redoubtable carnivorous and confident young males had all been sent away with our tails between our legs.  By a squirrel. Again, there was no one around to witness the absurdity, but in this case I think we were all okay with that.  We did pass by someone a few minutes later, and still a bit stunned and perhaps somewhat abstruse I said to them, “watch out: squirrel”.

That person probably thought I was crazy.  Absurdity had taken hold you see; it was reproducing.  But now my bruised funny bone has healed and I feel better.  I am normal, and can rejoin normal.  At least, until tomorrow, when I see all those dogs again.