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Pepper

Growing up, I spent a whole lot of time at my grandmother’s house. With both my parents working much of the time (at one point, my dad was working three jobs and my mom was working another), and my sister and I getting in trouble all the time, my mom decided to nip that shit in the bud by sending us to our grandmother’s house. My grandma had two dogs: Maggie, a black half-poodle, half-puli; and Pepper, a gray miniature schnauzer. I hated Maggie because when I was six years old, she bit my finger for no particular reason. But I loved Pepper. I’ll spend my entire life trying to reach a point where I can have my own dog, just so I can get another gray miniature schnauzer and hope that he’s half as awesome as Pepper.

Pepper and I were inseparable for a few years, but then my dad got a better job, so he could quit all three of his and my mom could quit hers and be a stay-at-home mom. We didn’t need to go to my grandmother’s as often (not every day, anyway), so I didn’t see Pepper as often. A few years later, he started getting decrepit. He went blind and started to go deaf. He never went nuts or anything like the yappy dog from next door (which finally died, thank God), but it was pretty sad to see him always walking into walls or getting into wacky trouble because he couldn’t hear the call to “take a break” (which became his command to take a fucking hike when he got annoying).

His death was pretty tragic for me, even though we only shared a close bond for maybe six months. But I still kind of miss him every once in awhile, which brings me to the ultra-depressing dream I had last night. I think it may have been prompted by Oy’s mournful behavior in The Dark Tower, because I’ve never really had such a vivid and depressing dream about a dog before. I think it was Pepper in dog-heaven — which looks suspiciously like the long, dark-wood, dimly lit, L-shaped hallway in my grandmother’s house — mourning the death of my grandmother. For some reason I was there, too (is this a sign of my fate?), trying to comfort his sadness, but he refused to eat, refused to play, wouldn’t let me pet him. He just slept all the time and eventually withered and died.

I awoke disturbed, but I didn’t think much of it until I tried to explain it to my sister. I realized my eyes were rimmed with tears and that this dream had had a more profound effect on me than I had originally known. I guess it just saddened and disturbed me that I was so thoroughly unable to comfort the depressed dog in his time of need. I think that reflects on my hilarious lack of sensitivity in my waking life. But as I look back on a life of cruelty and insensitivity, I do realize that I feel the most regret for a household pet in a dream that never happened and never will. Take that, people I’ve wronged!

Posted by Stan on July 17, 2006 5:45 PM  | Permalink | Family: The Horror… | Digg It