the Hippo Brigade

I don’t do mornings.

3 Comments

January 20, 2012

I feel like it’s necessary to have a visual representation to articulate this fact.

Because apparently the rumpled hair, my pillow-creased-angry-about-being-alive-face, and my bra-less chest isn’t getting the point across.

I need that Garfield shirt where his eyes are half open, his coffee cup is steaming, and the phrase, If people were meant to pop out of bed, we’d all sleep in toasters written on it.

It’s not that big of a deal while I’m home doing my morning shuffle throughout my halls, but it becomes a problem when I open the door, and blast my retinas with full blown sunshine and morning propaganda. It’s all that cheery chirping from the birds, and dew on the roses that really gets to me. Stupid morning dew on a flower. Flowers are dumb. But since my dog requires a walk in the morning, and because I know how much it sucks to hold in your twosies, I oblige her. I usually take with me a camel pack of coffee and Hudson tags along riding his bike.

I like to let the brisk air and the bright sunshine slowly (slowly being the operative word) wake me up and turn me into an actual human being and not the sleep zombie I wander around as before I brush my teeth and demand things from my husband in an unrecognizable diction:

ughh annnt paakass.

What?

paannkasss!

Huh?

PAAANKAASS!

 

But in my mind the conversation is more like:

Hey, wouldn’t it be nice if we had pancakes this morning?

What?

Pancakes.

Huh?

Pancakes.

So imagine if you will, a troll that has been living under a bridge and hasn’t see the light of day for the last 20 years, and then add some more boils and dread locks and a moth eaten Dr. Huxtable sweater with an old mustard stain, and you have me, circa 7:24 in the morning, walking the neighborhood with a pug, a bag of shit, and a toddler rolling around on a bike. I basically scream, “PLEASE COME TALK TO ME!!”

No?

Then why do all the people insist on talking to me?

It’s always fellow dog walkers, and we’re both holding steamy bags of poo, and we lift them up to each other as if to say, you got poop in there? Me too! High five-poo edition. But then they inch closer (because their dog has an uncontrollable craving to smell my dog’s anus, but all my dog wants to do is scout the ground for bits of goldfish crackers and dead grasshoppers), and usually the owner likes to fill in the butt sniffing silence with some banter.

My dog likes your dog.

(Grunts)

What’s your dog’s name?

Zoey.

What kind of dog is Zoey?

Pug.

Oh, yeah, she looks like the dog from Men in Black. Haha, that dog was the best. Pugs are cool. Wait, wasn’t that dog an alien? I’ve heard that pugs snore a lot, isn’t that loud? If my dog snored all the time, I’d probably make her sleep outside.

***

Annnd that’s usually my cue to shrug my shoulders and walk away. It’s a little rude, I know, but so is talking to a troll that hasn’t seen the light of day in 20 years.