A Tail Told by Dogwalker

Ever pull up at a McDonalds/Burger King/fast food speaker and say,

"I'd like a total of three cheeseburgers please. One plain, nothing but meat-cheese-and-lettuce (the old dog has bad teeth and doesn't like anything with seeds or too spicy), one with everything on it (for the "baby", a pit bull/golden retriever cross weighing in around 110 pounds and built like a coffee table...trying to slow down that low-man-on-the-totem-pole who is convinced he can make up size with speed and brashness), one with everything except tomato (the "big guy" will pick it apart and scatter the contents to get out anything that has touched a tomato or could possibly conceal a tomato seed)"

and have the clerk say, "You're the one with the dogs, right? You got any people you plan on feeding?"

"Nope. Not this time."

"Anything for the dogs at home?"

"Nope. Not this time."

"They're gonna feel left out."

"I already got them something special from the grocery store."

"Well, if you are sure...(long pause to let me know the clerk feels that I am playing favorites...or else to try to convince me to show up with eleven dogs ranging in size from an 8 pound Poodle dumped on our doorstep in heat to the Irish Wolfhounds)...drive on around..."

Followed by an unmistakable, "It's the one with the dogs again. Sounds like she's only got three this time," said to someone else.

And you drive on around to the window...

Where every employee in the place is waiting to see the show as:

All these heads lunge forward, bright eyed and drooling with anticipation, cerebrean hounds who seem to have more than the usual number of allotted heads because heads are everywhere...

Normally mild mannered dogs...

Normally well behaved dogs...

Normally gentle creatures who are more than willing to wait because they all know they will get their share and each one has something special the others don't get...

For some reason they have morphed into strange dogs who don't seem to understand no matter how many times the scenario is repeated:

You have to PAY for the food.

Your hand goes in bearing money that does NOT need to be sniffed by all dogs on board.

(Grinning audience...)

"That's the old man over there in the front seat, isn't it? Can he have a cookie, too?"

While I grapple trying to get my hands in my purse to retrieve the money with all these dratted dog noses plunging inside as though the laws of physics do not apply to food...it can mysteriously appear in my purse just by the act of talking in the dratted drive through mike...

My hand goes out bearing money followed by a complete swivel of all noses and a definite shifting of weight...

The audience's hand comes back bearing change which is inedible. This happens every time. The first time the clerk's hand comes out, it does NOT bear food and even if it did, that hand, in the interest of cleanliness, doesn't need to be sniffed, butted for ear scratches or licked...

The excitement in the van is growing. I am sure I feel slobber running down the back of my neck because my head has been "nosed" hard several times. "The old man" shifts from his place in the co-pilot's seat to get a better view, his nose between the steering wheel and my body which somehow makes the others want to have THEIR noses level with his.

The food comes out last in a package and every head is thrust towards it (and hopefully down into the top) for a good whiff.

And, as the window goes back up and the van moves away from the window, the critters settle back to wait for their own meal. The show is over and even though not one morsel has passed through the slavering jowls, all creatures are back in their "rider" places. Yes, there is a bit of drool in anticipation... but all that frenetic activity seems to be confined to the times between the opening of the window to use the drive through speakers and the actual transfer of the food to the van (when there was an audience to view the critters).

Copyright © 1999, 2001 by Chris Drew. Reprinted with permission of the author.