It Happened Last Night... with Ludo

My dog Ludo came to the house at 7 months old, when my then roommate brought him home to keep him from going to the pound. She tried to find him a home several times, but it never really worked out. Apparently, he was not treated very well, and he is very shy and untrusting of people. I even tried to find him a home. And, I thought that I had found one for him back in my home state of Florida, but before I could take him there, he and I had a loving moment and he became my dog forever. (To be clear, he is my second dog, I can't deny my beautiful Dixie girl).

The moment?  Well, I came home one day before the roomie did, and I noticed that he was limping a bit. I saw that one of his claws was missing. Poor little guy. So I took him in the bathroom and gently cleaned his paw up.  It was just me and him in there, and he leaned against me and wrapped his little head around my shoulder like he was hugging me. He trusted me. I fell in love.

That was three years ago. He trusts me so much now that he is quite relaxed around me. Sometimes he can even be a little bit of a bratty thing. I still get those sweet loving moments with him. But, sometimes I get those moments like, "Come on, Mom, get with the times!"

I've had to give him some Benedryl over the last few days, which means that Dixie and Ludo have been getting to eat hot dog pieces. Yummy yummy hot dog, doing a good job of disguising the medicine.

Ludo sleeps next to me every night. Sometimes to the point of pushing me off the bed! Ludo likes to roll around in his sleep, and sometimes sleeps on his back. Last night, Ludo was turned so that his face was away from me and his tail was near my pillow. When he decided to roll onto his back, he basically stuck his paw in my face. So I reached out and pushed his leg back down, making him roll back onto his side.

I looked over at him. His little head popped up and looking back at me with this look on his face. A look like "Really, bitch? Really?" I just laughed. But he got me back for it just a few minutes later, with a hot dog fart. Hot dog farts smell like hot dogs, with an added flair. As if some of the sauerkraut on a hot dog cart, fell into the hot dog juice while it was still hot enough to give off steam, but approaching lukewarm status. Then juice sloshed around a little, and some of it splashed up into your nostril as the steam covered your face. Yeah, like that.

Hot dog farts are NOT fun when they are in your face. Trust me on that one. But I still love the little guy.



Ludo, my little lovey bratty farty boy.

Classical Gas

The unfortunate truth to life is that we get older. My Uncle got older, as many tend to do, and needed to be in a physical rehabilitation center. He had suffered from a heart attack, and needed to stay for a couple of months. I was still a teenager at the time, and would go along with my mother from time to time to visit him. This particular time that I am going to tell you about, my mother’s friend, whom I call “Mom #2”, was with us.

This particular hotel did not offer private rooms to the patients, and so my uncle shared his room with another patient. I am not sure now if can recall the reason that this person needed to stay here and was given the neighboring bed, but I do recall that he was quite loud. This man was in pain. Horrible, gut wrenching pain.

He was moaning, groaning… screaming from the depths of his soul, it was terrible. We thought to call the nurses to his aid, but they had already heard his cries and were coming into the room.  The nurses were not able to help. Still, he continued to cry out in pain. We were all helpless. What demon had ahold of this man’s abdomen?  What horrors were happening inside of his gut? Filled with sympathy for this poor man, we stood by my Uncle’s side, wondering if he will ever find peace. 

It was about this time that the neighbor’s suffering came to an end. Finally, his cheeks had parted as if Moses himself had placed his staff at the top of this man’s crack, and the air of hostility that had held his bowels captive escaped. The rush of air that comes whipping through the trees just before the rain from the hurricane comes pelting down to the earth.  There was no control over it. There was no way he could have eased it out slowly. No, this was a full on stampede of toxic air.   

It was the longest, loudest fart that I had ever heard in my 16 years on the earth.  It is still the longest, loudest one that I have ever heard, and I am now 36 years old.  Twenty years I have listened for something as impressive as this was, and have yet to find it. A sound of that grandeur cannot be imitated. It is special, indeed. There has been no other that has shook an entire building.  None have out-lasted the length of the Gone with the Wind movie, while his pain was, ironically, gone with the wind.

The Majestic Art of the Epic Fart

After the orchestral masterpiece had faded away, and earth was no longer shaking.  Our dear neighbor’s pain was gone. The residents on the floor of the building had gone silent, most likely because they were temporarily deaf from the sonic boom when the jets flew out of his bum and broke the sound barrier, leaving a trail of green clouds in their wake.  The silence was broken by his soft, sweet, tender, and Oh So Joyous sigh of relief. Ahhhhh!  

It was at this point that Mom #2 and I looked at each other, shocked, mortified, and ready to burst into laughter. We knew that laughing at this poor man’s relief would not be appropriate, so we left the room quickly. In the hallway, we started to giggle, but the giggles couldn’t be contained and grew louder still.  We hurried down the hall, to the elevators.  We pushed the button for the down elevator, we got into the elevator, and once the doors had closed, we let out the loudest, longest fit of laughter we had ever laughed.  Well, that’s not totally true, we laugh quite often, and usually loudly. Sometimes we laugh so hard, that we ourselves, end up tooting out in true putt-putt fashion.  And then we laugh even more.

So that is my story about how I had to quickly leave a physical rehabilitation center, because someone ripped a big one.