It's Friday, so it's time for another of your freakazoid stories. And, yes, I too love me for saying, "freakazoid." While we're at it, let me tell you that there's no parking, baby. No parking on the dance floor.
Anyway. Before I turn you over to this week's story, let me tell you about the deep and abiding love my dogs have for me. Which by the way is impressively deep. And abiding.
I went home for lunch on Thursday, as I am wont to do because I live close to work and that is a luxury I am still not over, having lived in LA for so long. So, there I was, eating my Weight Watchers-approved lunch of air and plain water, and I decided to turn on the TV. If I'm home at 1:00 I can watch Sex and the City, for a change, because I don't know every episode within the first 10 seconds of watching one or anything.
But I was home at noon, so instead I flipped around, not literally, and found Marley & Me.
I don't know if you recall when I saw it in the theater, but it was not sophisticated. I was still married to Marvin, and the mob. My mother and stepfather had come for Christmas. While they were visiting, I'd requested we see Marley & Me, since my mother has dogs and so do I and so on. But they wanted to see Milk, the movie where Sean Penn is a gay guy.
"We can go to the refrigerator and see milk for free," I tried, but everyone had to be all thinky and liberal and enjoy the shit out of a gay guy being killed. Afterward, we all listened to NPR and drove hybrids and gave peace a chance.
As soon as my mother and stepfather were gone, I said to Marvin, "Let's go see Marley & Me." But Marvin was teaching then, and he was sick every five minutes with some new thing a germy child had given him, and he very dramatically splayed on the couch and droned on about his sickyness. So I went without his punk ass. I shoulda just called Ned.
Do you ever do that? Do you ever think about times before you knew someone you love currently, and think about how you were once at that restaurant six seconds from their house, or that you know for sure you were at the same event once? Or do you ever think about a time you felt blue, and if you'd only just known your person back then, you coulda called him or her and things woulda been better?
Well, I do. But I'm a freak. Azoid.
The point is, I went to the movies, and it was still Christmastime, so the theater was packed with families seeing films, and there I was, completely alone, and I recall my hair was particularly dreadful that day, as I did not know the Curly Girl Method yet, so hello frizzazoid.
I hate to break it to you, but eventually in that movie, the dog dies. Okay? He dies. And other people in the theater were sniffing politely, getting out tissues as unobtrusively as possible. And I
"BUHHHHHHH! BOOOOOOO HOOHOOHOOHOOOOOO. AAAAAHHHHHHH HUH HUH {sniff!}."
Dudes. I was crying so loudly, and so ludicrously, that people turned to look at me. When the lights went up, I got my sobby fright wig self the hell out of there as quickly as possible.
And do you think my second viewing of that movie yesterday was any better? As soon as Marley started slowing down, I got teary. Then when he got sick, I started crying. By the time that dog actually expired, I was crying so hard I thought I might barf.
The whole time this was happening, Tallulah remained in bed, where she was having her afternoon nap, as opposed to her morning nap and the one she likes to take after sunset, just before bed. I was crying so hard that Edsel didn't even understand I was calling him. He'd been sunning himself on the deck.
"Edddddddd{hic!} Edshuhuhuhuhul! Come here, Edsss-sobbb!" Eventually, he caught on, and came trotting in. He finally remembers that he learned how to open the screen door. He'd taught himself to do it, taught Tallulah how to do it, then completely forgot he knew, and for about a year would just stand underbitedly at the door after Talu had opened it with her snout.
Anyway, he trotted in, took one look at my contorted face and trotted right back out again.
edz luff to stay and chat, but he gots...theeng to do. sy co mom.
I mean, isn't the POINT of a dog that he's THERE for you when you're crying hysterically over an Owen Wilson movie? Why else do you tolerate the dirt, the barking, the eating of cat poop, and the fur fur fur all over the place? Isn't that their ONE redeeming quality?
yuu rayse good poynt, mom. lu theenk it....it.....zzzzzzzzz.
Yeah.
Okay anyway, on to Freaky Friday, written this week by my pal Sleeping Beauty. If you have a strange story, email it to me at byebyepie.typepad.com.
FREEEEEEEEEKY FRIDAY STORY by Sleeping Beauty
About 10 years ago I was on a shoot for a National Geographic documentary about transsexual fish (don't ask). We were filming a little fishy colony off of Catalina Island with some scientists. You may remember Catalina Island as the place where Natalie Wood bit it, and you may also know that there are sharks in the deep waters surrounding it.
I was the only member of the film crew and scientists who didn't know how to SCUBA dive, so while everyone was SCUBA-ing down below our dive boat with the transsexual fishies, I was snorkeling around the boat by myself.
The water was a beautiful light blue milky color reflecting sunshine, and tall stands of flowing kelp were all over the place. I'm paddling around enjoying the water when suddenly I get a bizarre and indescribable feeling that I need to get out of there right away. No reason—I didn't see anything menacing or unusual; just the sun shining through the blue water and the kelp fronds here and there. But something told me to paddle back to the boat NOW. So I did, and I scrambled out of the water and into the boat as fast as I could. I never saw anything, and my colleagues soon resurfaced.
Next day we got a report there had been a great white shark attack in exactly the area where we were working, maybe a half hour after we were there. I also learned that sharks cannot only receive electrical signals alerting them to other animals' presence—they can send them too. I'm fairly certain that indescribable feeling I got was an electrical pulse sent from a great white shark, probably just feet away from me in that milky blue water off Catalina Island.