A True Comedy of Errors

     We have two amazing dogs.  Bosco's almost two, and he's a blond beauty that looks exactly like a mini Golden Retriever but acts like a Chow Chow.  Bowie is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who will be a year next week, and he's a mischievous, but brilliant, trouble maker.  We had been petless for ten years, neither of us realizing what we were missing.  Around my 3rd failed IVF, I cried that I needed something to love, something soft, furry, and amazing.  Enter Bosco. Then nine months later, enter Bowie.  We now have two beautifully behaved (most of the time) canines that we are nuts about.

    Nearly every night we either take them to the dog park or out for a nice, long stroll.  Last night it was a stroll.  We have a series of canal's where we live that are a mile long on each side, with water in between, all separated by streets.  We have a normal route that the dogs know very well, but we like to switch it up and challenge their brains.  Normally it works out fine, the key word being normally.

     It's been about 112 degrees during the day, so we walk around 7:30 or 8:00 in the evening.  Last night we were trying to catch up on Mad Men, and realized we better walk before it got too dark out.  So off we went, smartly deciding to mix it up on this very night.  We headed across the road to a different section of canal, one we've only walked during the day, and not very often.

     The way this part is different are the following: there are NO lights, the canal recesses steeply into water drainage, and is made of cement that comes off on a steep, vertical incline. We should have just turned around, but we didn't.  We proceeded ahead, and here begins our comedy of errors.

     Dave and I are walking along casually, completely calm, as the dogs are off leash.  They are very responsive, we've been practicing off leash walking, and we hardly have to worry.  They run a few feet ahead of us, sniffing, smelling, peeing, tails wagging in euphoric delight.  Bowie walks closely to the bank of the canal, exploring, peering in the water, zig-zagging back and forth.  All is going as smooth as can be...

     Suddenly, Bowie goes to the bank of the canal, peers over the side, and is suddenly sliding down the cement bank and plunging head first into the murky, green, smelly water.  Bowie is NOT the swimmer of the family, and he's 19 pounds, so there's not much to him.  He's swimming, trying to make it up the slippery cement, only to slide back down.  His yelps of fright fill the air.

     Dave goes into instant action.  The bank is too steep to lean over and pull Bowie out, so he sits down, throws off his Nike 6.0's (cause that's what they do in the movies), and jumps into the water in his clothes and socks like Superman.  Bosco then decides he either needs to join this rocking party or rescue Dave and Bowie, we're not sure which. We now have both dogs swimming around and yelping, and Dave trying to get them both out of the wicked canal.

     Dave then boosts first one dog, then two, onto the dirt path.  Bowie is now running in circles barking, obviously upset that Dave's still in the canal.  "I'm going to need a new Iphone 4," Dave says, as he realizes he took time to take off his Nike's (which he has at least 50 pairs of), but not to remove his cell phone, aka his life, from his shorts pocket.  I bend down to anchor myself, giving Dave both my hands, but the cement is so mossy and slimy, and I have embryo's hopefully nesting in my uterus, so he didn't want me lifting.  He tries to get himself out, but his socked feet just slip right back down to the bottom of the water.

     Poor Dave then ends up having to walk down for at least a quarter mile.  The murky water is up to his waist, the sludge sloshes under his socked feet, his stomach crawls as he thinks of what he is walking through.  I slowly walk beside him as the dogs run around in agitated chaos.  I wonder if I should call 911? Should I go home and get a ladder? Should I scream for help? I realize now that things weren't nearly this bad, but I was hormonal. 
 
    Finally there is a cement recess that goes straight up instead of at an incline, so Dave is able to hoist his messy, damp, algae rich body up and onto the dirt.  He rescued not only our Cavalier, but himself.  I am ecstatic.  He is Captain Cavalier! My hero! He deserves a Brownie Button.  We trudge home with two wet dogs and a wet husband.  We march past the suspicious eyes of our neighbors, into the back yard, and throw the trio in the first bathing station, our pool.  Everyone is still alive, but there is a causality, a beautiful, shiny, new Iphone 4 has died...

     I couldn't help but laugh hysterically all the way home.  It was funny. It was a great story. and my awesome husband was a great sport about it.  Like I said, just call him Captain Cavalier.