unluki-er

The evening of the first day, outside the bar… it started to rain, not like English rain, this was like crowbars. So bad was it we had to borrow a brolly in order to get home. This Ondine turn of events didn’t bode at all well, I wasn’t even clear of my first day in Italy and already it was pissing down. This wasn’t meant to happen, it was May for fucks sake, in Italy.

I woke up the following morning mildly confused. I was alone in a single bed, well, half in a single bed, half out. The door opened and IC appeared with an espresso and Lucky almost vertical behind her in the shape of an angry star. I got up, fast.

IC and I went out for breakfast; the weather was brooding but clement, sort of ‘English summer’ it might rain a bit. It rained a bit. I had brioche with custard which was fucking lush. For all I knew it was my last meal as the task to follow could result in me being torn into bacon rashers.

Lucky likes to scratch at doors, perhaps more ‘claw’ at doors as he tries in vain to get to the petrified eyes of whatever is scurrying away yonder. Every door in IC’s mothers apartment, and there are many, bear testament to the frantic attentions of Lucky, and this was the reason we had to take him to the vet to have his nails clipped for the love of god.

ICS was at work so it was down to IC and I to undertake this task unaided. This was bad news, bad news made devastating news when IC informed me that Lucky didn’t do cars. Of course, being a dog, as soon as the lead was attached and (more pertinently) the muzzle fitted, he figured something was very wrong and responded accordingly. But instead of attempting to bark the place down he got a bit upset, whining and going all rigid and shit. He was proper scared, and I’m convinced he thought he was being taken to place where he’d suffer the doggy fate of being hanged by the neck until dead. I actually started to feel sorry for the poor old bugger.

By the time we got to the car Lucky had decided 100% he wasn’t going anywhere which meant that IC had to physically scoop him up and drop him into the boot space and poke him into position with an arm and a foot so he didn’t get caught in the slamming hatchback.

Initially I sat in the front but Lucky was in such a state I decided to sit in the back and reach over and stroke the poor sod. He looked utterly petrified and was shaking like a Motorhead bass cab. I figured that when that muzzle came off I’d just get on a plane but for now I felt duty bound to help out a fellow male under extreme duress. I patted him firmly and spoke to him like this ‘aruh, arf,’ he was fucking terrified, I mean proper First World War trench stuff…so much so, he shit hisself.

I should imagine that many of you haven’t experienced a dog excreting half a dozen eggs in a confined space. I’ve been a fucking nurse and I have to say, the smell from this rivalled the arc of horror emanating from the old dear who fired off her colostomy bag after a cancer inspired ‘tummy upset.’ It was sensationally dreadful. The smell rendered me speechless, IC drove the rest of the (merciful god) short journey with her head lolling out the window like a dead frog. By the time we arrived my eyes were watering so much I could barely see.

In comparison to the journey there the nail clipping part was a breeze. The vet calmed Lucky down and got on with it, at one point he was momentarily distracted by a fat cat having a blow dry in the adjacent room but the incident was sated by a firm word from IC. Lucky remained silent (boom boom)

We got back into the car and Lucky was released from his muzzle, sensing that he was to live another day he wasn’t too flustered on the way home and the predicted assault on my personage never got out of first gear, he and I had bonded somewhat and from there on in, Lucky and I became mates.

I was so chuffed I even let IC clean his shit up.

(more tomoz)