Friday, July 22, 2011

Aidan Swims in a Sea of Meat

Davey left this morning for a music festival in Santa Barbara. I was glad he was leaving because he needed a vacation, but I realized that I had nothing to occupy my time with now that I didn't have my roomie.

The solution to my lack of plans or money was, obviously, a barbecue. I had meats, both real and fake, condiments, and soda pop. I had access to moneyed people that could lend me some cash to buy a box of wine (Yes. A classy, classy box of wine. Franzia. I only serve the highest quality to my guests when I entertain). I farted out a facebook event invite and annoyingly posted something every hour about how there was a barbecue that night. Naturally, people being busy and having lives that were more exciting and booze-fueled than mine meant that on such short notice most people had to work or had prior engagements and could not come. In the end, there were ten of us in attendance, with three of that number being close blood relations to me. I had a lot of fun, though. I hope everyone else did, too.

I brought Aidan.

I felt bad for him being left with no father for three days, and a step-mother who was about to abandon him in favor of fresh air and 5 liters of burgundy. So my brother, Kris, and I gathered the barbecue essentials and loaded the car with soda pops, beers, wine, plates, napkins, forks, cups, veggie burgers, flesh burgers, and 25 lbs. of pug. Kris carried that last one on his lap.

Aidan was pretty pleased with the barbecue. A group of people were having their own barbecue at a nearby table when Kris and I were getting there to set up, and apparently when they left they scattered various meats on the ground for God knows what reason. All I know was that after they left, as the sun began to set and we finally fired up our own grill, Aidan kept turning up with random meat.

"Hey, Kariana," Kris yelled to me.

"What?" I asked, my eye a little squinty from drinking wine on an empty stomach.

"What's your position on Aidan eating ribs?"

"That's okay if they're soft enough," I said. "Why?"

Kris shrugged. "Aidan found a rib bone, it seems."

I strode over. "Let me take a look at it, in case."

Aidan saw me coming and scuttled away with the goods.

"I doan hab a bode im my mouf," he said, his words mangled by the bone in his mouth.

"Aidan, just come here and let me see that bone," I said, trying to reach for it.

"Noooooo!" Aidan protested, scurrying ahead of me determinedly.

He reached the end of the leash.

"Poo!" he cursed, trying to hide under the table so I couldn't reach into his mouth and steal his treat. I pried it out of his mouth.

"I hunted for it and I found it and I want to eat it!" Aidan said. "That's my animal!"

I felt the edge of the bone where Aidan had been gnawing with my fingertips to confirm what my eyes were telling me in the half light. "This is too brittle," I said. "I'm not letting you eat it."


"But I love it!" Aidan pouted. "Don't take what I love from me."

I gave him an unimpressed look and tossed the bone in the trash bin. He sulked for a few moments, but soon got over it.

A little while later my Dad was walking Aidan around waiting for the remaining guests and I to finish playing a drawing game so he could go home. Aidan was jingling around and my Dad was wandering and they were hard to see because it was so dark out. We were playing our game by the light of a solitary street lamp in the middle of the picnic area, and everywhere else was draped in the indigo and ebony veils of nighttime. When they entered the lighted area, Aidan had another rib bone in his mouth, which he was industriously chewing as he walked.

"What do you have in your mouth?" demanded my father, snatching it away. He held it up so I could see it. "Aidan found another rib bone."

"Throw it away," I said, strictly.

Aidan stomped his paws a little as he watched his precious meat-wrapped rib bone go into the garbage. My Dad wandered back into the near invisibility of the darkness with the pug again, leaning against a rock while Aidan scampered from table to table peeing and investigating the interesting scents. When they came back into the lighted area to check on the game's progress, Aidan waddled towards me with bright, shining eyes and a whole sausage hanging out of his mouth.

"Aidan! What the hell?" I said. "What does he have in his mouth?"

"He has something in his mouth again?" said my Dad incredulously. He grabbed it from the dog and inspected it near-sightedly. "Is this one of ours?"

My Dad had brought bratwursts, all of which had been readily consumed immediately following their being done.

"No, that's not ours," I said. Aidan looked appealingly up at the sausage.

"You already had a whole hamburger patty!" I said, referring to the snack I had given him earlier for being so cute and sociable. Aidan maintained his stance of adoring the brat from below.

"Let him have the sausage," I relented. It had no bones and it made the little king happy.

My Dad gave it back to him and the pug began snarfing it. I grabbed my camera to take a picture, but by the time the power had been turned on, the sausage was already gone. I took over Aidan's leash and he sat under my bench at the table while I played my game and my Dad packed up the barbecue stuff so he could leave faster after the game. I couldn't see what he was doing in the darkness so well, but when he emerged into the light he held a hamburger patty with one bite taken out of it.

It was Aidan's hamburger patty that I had given him, uneaten. Of all the meats strewn across the dirt, the one Aidan was allowed to have was the one he did not consume.

I will never understand what goes on in that pug's head.

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