Dogged by Dog Days of Summer
A few scenes of pathos from the last dog days of summer:
Scene One: The other morning I decided to take a brisk, healthful walk to a coffee shop for breakfast. I left my car unattended on the street in front of the house (something I often do when I’m not driving it). The sun was shining, birds were singing from telephone wires, and blond-haired boys were playing in the street. All seemed safe.
Sometime that morning, from what I can piece together from the authorities, a giant mechanical creature that looked like Son of Robocop menacingly approached my car from behind. The creature had a gyrating head and big fuzzy hands and was driven by what appeared to be an alien being that, which I later learned, was a city employee. The creature is called Street Sweeper.
My aged and defenseless car was no match for Street Sweeper, who left a $12 ticket on the windshield. I graciously paid the ticket, although I can produce witnesses who can prove I was several blocks away eating oatmeal at the time. I’m just not used to mechanical objects cleaning the streets. I’m from the Midwest, and we use something else there: It’s called rain, and it’s free.
Oh, well.
Scene Two: I’ve been staying with a friend while I put the pieces of my fractured life back together. I’ve been here a year now. Even I didn’t realize my life was that fractured. Actually, it isn’t fractured at all, but otherwise it just sounds as if I’m freeloading.
Anyway, my friend just got a cat. He’s a cute little fella who jumps around a lot and plays with string and says “mew” whenever we open a can of tuna. Well, Cute Little Fella now has enough fleas to invade a small country. Worse yet, he’s told the little monsters where my bedroom is. My legs now look like a Connect-the-Welts game board. Not a pretty sight on the beach. I mentioned the flea problem to my friend and he said we’d have to dip the cat. I volunteered to whip up the vat of boiling bacon grease, but I guess he meant something else.
Oh, well.
Scene Three: I got my California driver’s license. Before getting a license, however, I had to get a smog check. I took it to a garage and, alas, my fluorocarbon level did me in. The friendly service station man put his arm on my shoulder and said he could correct the problem for $40.
I couldn’t stay long enough to have the car fixed, but he kept his arm on my shoulder until I paid him $20 for having run the original test. I gave him my last $20, and we agreed to exchange Christmas cards. The next day at a different station, the car passed the test with no problems.
Oh, well.
Scene Four: Some of the guys at The Times invited me to play softball. Modesty prevented me from launching into tales of glory as a once-youthful shortstop of uncommon athletic gifts. Why bore them, I thought.
They asked me if I could play right field. That’s what we used to ask my cousin who got A’s in Latin and calculus and wore thick glasses. So I played right field, squinting into the infield where the real ballplayers play and wondering where the years had gone. About then a ball went rolling past me, and I had to go get it.
Oh, well.
Scene Five: Did I mention I’m in show business? Actually, I’m trying to get into show business. See, I have these scripts. . . .
Anyway, because I’m almost in the business, I go to lots of movies. I went to something called “Dirty Dancing” a couple of weeks ago. In a 300-seat theater, two teen-agers with lots of things to catch up on sat behind me. They started talking the moment they sat down and they weren’t about to let anything as intrusive as the movie stop them.
I was feeling pretty macho (the right field experience hadn’t happened yet), so I turned and asked if they were going to talk through the entire movie or just the critical opening minutes. They gave me kind of a dumb teen-ager look like “What planet are you from, dude?” and kept right on talking. I moved.
Oh, well.
It’s just the dog days of summer. It’ll pass.
I mean, it isn’t true what they say about California, is it? Summers don’t really last forever. Do they?
