2014

Lola accepted the pig ear like she was taking communion.  She advanced slowly, eyes raised toward the giver and gently took the ear into her mouth.  And then, she ran away with it.  Alec and I laughed.  We know she really likes something if she runs off with it, as if we would buy her an expensive treat, give it to her, and then try to take it back for ourselves. 

I ripped the lights off of the tree, threw them on a chair and dragged the tree through the front door, along the side of the house and into my trunk.  It was sticking about five feet out, but I just crammed the truck door on top of it and drove down the street, watching the door open and close on top of the tree.  The fucking Boy Scouts would be done with the chipper in seven minutes.  I could make it.  If I didn't, I would be stuck with this thing that the trash men refuse to pick up.

The tree stayed in the trunk all the way to the first turn around the south end of the park.  I was thrilled.  I saw a man at the bottom of the hill in jogging clothes.  He was on the ground, holding his leg and grimacing.  Some weird stretch?  I almost kept driving.  I don't stop for men in need no matter what the situation is.  Especially not white men.  They just have to find someone else, because I like my lady parts unmolested and value my life.

I slowed the car.
"Are you okay?"  I called hesitantly.
"I just twisted it, really bad..." he responded, short breathed.
"Um....do you....need a ride... to your nearby house....?" I asked with an obvious look of trepedation on my face.
"Really?  Can you do that?  Hey, you're my neighbor!" he said grimacing and stating my address.  I realized that he understood why women are fearful of closed spaces with unknown men. 
"Can you walk over here?"
He limped slowly across the street, dragging a leg behind him.  I felt like an ass for not parking the car and helping him. 

Lola clandestinely walked toward the front of the house.  I followed her and was surprised when I saw the pig ear hidden behind the chair cushion.  She has done this before, but I didn't realize she loved this particular ear that much.  She extracted it, and walked around the house with the entire thing 'hidden' in her mouth.  Her lip was sticking up were a tiny bit of the ear protruded from her large jaws.  We sat on the couch.  I helped her hide it again behind a couch cushion, pulling the cushion away so that she could insert it and secretively shoving the blanket forward that she was trying to advance with her nose to cover the buried treasure.  She repeated the burial all afternoon, in four parts of the couch, under my pillow on the bed, back in the chair, in plain view by the fireplace, shoved between the bed and the wall.

He made it into the car.
"Sorry, but do you mind if I get this thing out of my trunk?  It's on the way and the Scouts are done in five minutes".
"Yeah... " he said, flinching with pain.

"Okay, five seconds!"  I said brightly, wheeling through the Boy Scout stand and on around the park.