Our dogs are pretty good about going outside to do their business . If they have an accident it's usually our fault because we either had the back door closed or we didn't pay attention to them when they tried to warn us.
Today, my father's dog must not have been feeling well, because he had an accident. Twice! It's probably from all the junk food my father insists on feeding him, but my father will never admit to it. Either that, or my Dad has trained him to annoy me.
When the second accident happened, my father was sitting in his usual spot in the great room, minding his own business, and snacking on a chicken leg. He wanted to know what was going on when he saw my wife and I cleaning up the mess.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Well," I tell him, "your dog just had an accident in the house."
"My dog, you say?"
"Yes, your dog."
"Hmm, it couldn't have been my dog."
"Why not?"
"My dog's housebroken."
I could see my wife pursing her lips.
"It was your dog, Dad."
"Maybe it was your dog," he told me.
Now, I have a big dog. I mean, a big dog. And he's never had an accident in the house. If he ever had had an accident in the house, I would have to call the President.
My father's dog, on the other hand, is of the small, yappy variety. I find small, yappy dogs particularly useless. Well, that's not true. I just find my Dad's small, yappy dog useless. Well, more annoying than useless. And more irritating than annoying. Sometimes he'll pee in the house out of spite. If he had an accident in the house, the "gift" he left for us would have been small, which is exactly the size of what we found.
"Yeah, it was your dog, Dad," I tell him.
"Well..." he says, "you know.... You say my dog?" His words turn into a mumble as he shakes his head in disbelief. "Mumble, mumble."
"Yes, Dad," my wife tells him, as she uses some little sanitary wipes to sanitize the marked territory. "Your dog must not be feeling well. He didn't make it out the back door in time."
"Or even try," I get the feeling she wanted to say.
My wife usually has all the patience of a saint, and she did the first time the little stinker had his accident. Apparently, she lost some of the sparkle on her halo the second time around.
My father gets up and walks over, looking at her with his bug eyes as she was finishing up. There are only two times my father's eyes bug out. One, when he's guilty of something, and two, when trying to get away with something.
He looks over the crime scene. At any minute I'm expecting his black friend who flies a helicopter to show up from Hawaii and help him solve the case.
"Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh," he says, evaluating the evidence. Then he points at the area of violation with what's left of his chicken leg, and, chewing, he tells her, "Well, you know, your grandson was here earlier."
"Yeah, so?" I say.
I was irritated to begin with, and the way he said that irritated me even more. He said "your grandson" like it had nothing to do with him. My grandson is his great-grandson. And it's true, we took care of our grandson for a few hours earlier that morning, but, like I said, "So what?"
"He was standing at that very spot," my Dad says, pointing again with the chicken leg. Insinuating that my grandson (his great-grandson), who's waay beyond his potty training years, must have been the perpetrator. Assault with a stinky weapon.
"Yeah, right, Columbo," I wanted to say. "Maybe it was you!"
Raising My Father
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