Doctor Dolittle

I got to thinking about all the times I made a fool of myself. I have no shortage of foolish memories on tap. Some were funny, some were embarrassing, and some a spoonful of both. All my foolish experiences, however, regrettably remain a part of my life. Here is one trinket of foolishness.

I graduated high school in 1980. It was a big party year. The world appeared at my footsteps and there were times I treaded none too lightly. I overindulged in barley and hops the summer after my high school graduation. I frequented local bars, taverns, and disco infernos. I wore clingy muscle shirts and Calvin Klien jeans that would no longer fit over my calves. I loved the taste of beer so much you could catch me licking foam from the lip of beer bottles.

Somehow drinking one beer at a time became too slow a process. I cannot take credit for its invention but my irresponsible sudsy era was highlighted by making a beer bong out of a milk jug, clear plastic tubing, and hardware. The beer bong was speed drinking for professionals like me. It enabled me to chug-a-lug a gallon of beer in less than ten seconds then piss like a race horse at the nearest trough. Silly foolishness and inconceivable bloating now but what a rush for a lush back then. Okay, that sets the table for a twenty five year old foolish story.

Around two o'clock in the morning, I arrive home in my gold 1979 Chevrolet Camaro. I am borderline intoxicated with the last few Miller beers invading my bladder. The house is dark except for a lone street light. I pray that my parents are sound asleep. I hear a jingle and a shake of fur to my left. My eyes squint to see our dog, Daisy, staked on the leash of a chain. It seemed a given that somebody must have mistakenly left her outside all night. I figured I should better check to make sure.

So I asked Daisy, "What are you doing out here?" It was a rhetorical question that beckons no answer from a dog.

"I don't know Joe. What are you doing out here?"

I stopped dead in my tracks in the middle of the front yard. The dog spoke to me in a gruff Scooby Doo voice. What the heck is going on? I thought to myself. I got to go easy on the bottle because the dog is talking to me. In my inebriated state, I could barely speak decent English and the pooch just asked me a sarcastic question.

"Joe. How was your night out?" asked the dog.

Whoa Nellie! Not again. The dog just asked me a personal question. What the? This can't be happening. The dog talked to me not once but twice and now sits wagging its tail as if it were no big deal.

I promise myself to give up drinking, go to church, and see a psychiatrist all in the same breath. I was on the road to sobriety and rehabilitation when I heard laughing. I turned around but nobody was there. More laughing, the deep kind of body shaking laughing you only hear a few times a year. My prankster brother, John, rolled himself out from a curled stowaway position under our mother's car. He was nearly pissing himself laughing. The dog was not.

Sometimes when you Dolittle but drink, it does a lot in the making of a fool.