Spent the day at church, kind of; actually in a sinister-looking white panel van with Alex. We were loaded down with a passel of yapping goofballs heading north to St Louis and beyond to their forever homes, collected from various rescue groups along the way.
(First scriptural reference coming up)
“Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together”
The prelude to the actual services began when we left Little Rock well before daylight, and started with communion in the form of prefab cinnamon rolls and Charlie Bravo coffee, a combination guaranteed to prompt a movement later in the day, not necessarily of the spiritual type. (Second scripture reference, from Genesis)
“It was without form and void”
We made our pickup in Jonesboro with the Arkansas Pet Savers rescue group;
the pre-dawn meeting in the far end of a deserted parking lot almost felt a bit clandestine, except that the volume of the dogs was a dead giveaway that we weren’t involved in a transaction involving illicit weapons. We then rolled hard for the border with our cache of precious cargo.(here we go again, you know the drill)
“As ye do unto the least of these, do ye even so to Me”
We met with Mickey, the next leg of the relay, another surreptitious meeting of the suspicious white van, this time in the parking lot of Pet Smart in Arnold, MO. After guzzling coffee all morning, the only thing that can make you have to irrigate the soybeans even more is holding the leashes of a prancing platoon of over-hydrated pups while they do THEIR business. An actual conversation between myself and Gus, the big Pyrenees(emphasis on the “P’)
Me: hey. Big guy! Do you need to go #1 or #2?
Gus: I have to go #3
Me: #3?
Gus: yeah! I gotta go A LOT!
By this time the canines were all fully drained of their fluids, I had began to realize the wisdom of investing in Depends for myself, or at least a catheter of some sort. The transaction was finally finished, all the dogs fully evacuated and loaded into Mickey’s SUV, and with the services concluded and the last benediction spoken, we parted ways.
(Closing scriptures)
“Do unto others as you would have done to you”
“The righteous care for the needs of their animals, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.”
“…that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
We pointed the now empty van back south towards the Casa. As I was raised in Arnold, it only made sense to go by and see the earliest Casa, where this crazy fixation all began with a dog named Buck, then Bucky. Then Buckwheat, and the lineage continue to this day. It’s crazy how large things are remembered as a child, only to see them years later and realize how small they really were. How the scary mansion on the hill behind a childhood home where the witches lived was really just a modest two story house inhabited by a duo of spinster sisters.
Or were they? Hmmm… I haven’t seen my old friends from those days; some things are better left unknown.
Anyway, we arrived back at the current Casa del Whackos shortly before dark, and were promptly assaulted by a sextet of slavering beasts, intent on drowning the humans in question with copious amounts of dog spit.
Wait a minute; I thought the service was over! No one mentioned a baptismal service!
And they all said…
AMEN.
