Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Travel dog II

When traveling East on I20, I liked to listen to the oldies rock stations. I'd bring music, but I'd get tired of it after a while and start playing the radio. All the oldies rock stations seemed similar along there. As soon as I'd get out of range of one, I'd find another. They'd be playing, basically the same stuff and the same commercials.

Smid would sometimes start acting oddly when were riding along. He'd start in the front passenger seat but then he'd start trying to ride in my lap. Then he'd go back to the passenger seat. Then into the back seat and/or the back floorboard. Sometimes he'd try and ride in the front floor near the brake and clutch pedals. A no-no. It would get tough fighting him off. It's hard to drive a 5-speed with all of his antics going on. He'd eventually calm down and go back to sleeping in the front seat.

It took some time to figure out what was bothering him. I started out thinking he was just a freaky little dog or he was losing it or he was getting senile. Then I noticed this cell phone commercial that came on the radio. They did their spiel and they'd play some sort of high-pitched cell phone noise. I noticed Smid started freaking out, right after that. It was the noise that was bothering him. You know how they are with commercials. They play the same ones over and over. I had to stay alert and shut the radio off before that tweeting noise, that was bothering him, came on.

One other time, we got caught in a thunder storm in Southern Alabama. I was trying to get to Meridian MS, before dark, to get to the Motel 6. Suddenly a large cloud moved in and it started raining extremely hard. It was one of those rains where I was leaning on top of the steering wheel and trying to see out the front window. I wanted desperately to pull over but I couldn't see what was on the side of the road, or even if there was a side of the road. Every time I looked into my rear-view mirror, all I could see were the lights of the semi that seemed to be on my back bumper.

It was a loud storm. Lots of thunder and lightening. The rain on the roof of the car was loud too. The whole thing freaked Smidley completely out. He shook and shook. He was inconsolable. I talked to him. I held him. I told him he was an itty-bitty baby. Nothing worked. Even after a nights sleep, he was freaky. I went to a few places I had planned on going, but Smid was freaking me out too. We ended up going home after a couple of days instead of three or four days, like I'd planned. Sidney was a great companion, usually. He was good company. But not when he was being freaky like that.

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