The dog that challenged the author.

by Hugh Gilmore

I was at a birthday party for my niece, Peggylee, and there was a lot of people there and a giant, fancy cake and all kinds of good things to eat, like sandwiches and cookies and various kinds of fruity-colored juices, so I was looking forward to a good time.

I had arrived just a minute or two before we was all called to the table to sing the Happy Birthday song, so I just said hello to my brothers and sisters and cousins and nieces and nephews and in-laws and even my one remaining grandmother, as we all walked to the big table. My sister Cindylee lit the 13 candles for little Peggylee, and I took a deep breath and with great merriment in my heart started to sing, “Haapee Birrr.....” I was the only one singing.

I took my eyes off that gorgeous multi-tiered B-Day cake, its pink frosting gleaming under the 13 candles. Little Peggylee was texting something. Important, I guessed. Hmmm. Well, I’ll jest wait, I thought. After all, no one else seemed to mind. In fact, her sister, Mindylee, and her BFF, Saralee, were texting too. Across the table from them Karalee, Daralee, Taralee and Verilee were texting. Peggylee’s parents were video camera shooting this quiet little scene. So were my other brothers and sisters. I thought, “What the heck, is this?” and turned to grandmom to get her to move this scene along, but dang, when I looked over at her, she had dropped her knitting into her lap and she was holding and watching a little tiny TV monitor of one of those afternoon TV shows where someone’s mother is sleeping with her daughter’s best friend’s husband’s brother on a hammock.

“Some dumb Gerry Springer-type show,” I thought, but I looked at the tiny screen again and went, “Whoah, that’s the hammock right out there in the yard. This ain’t no Gerry Springer show. This is a live feed!”

I ran into the living room to get away from that Wasteland in the Birthday room and, holy cow, there’s 16 different people holding 16 different iPads, watching 16 different apps, like FaceBook, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, Huffy-somethin’ News.

“You guys see what’s goin’ on in the dinin” room?” I shouted. “They’ze all zombied-up. Out on the lawn, too,” I said. Nobody looked up. Maybe they needed clarification. I tried, “Well, not on the lawn, zactly, more like in the hammock.” Not a word. Not a head turned away from a screen.

Something nudged my leg. It was my sister’s dog, Libro, a mini collie.

“Hello, boy, how you doin?” he said.

“You can talk?” I said.

“Yeah, wanna get some cake?” he said.

That was the best question I heard all day. “Sure, let’s go.”

We went to the dining room. The cutting knife went through that icing like, well, like a cutting knife. But it stopped there. Under the icing was all hard. I scraped some away. Watta ya know … plywood! They just slapped down a whole bunch of icing on the plywood birthday cake form. Then put little rosettes here and there. Guess the kids just like the icing. Lookee there: they misspelled Pglee. And Hp BD, and mny mr.

I scraped a load of icing on a paper plate for Libro and let him have my chair at the table. He licked a few samples and then turned to me with that, “Oh, shucks, we forgot something” look.

“What, Libro? What did we forget?”

He’s a good pointer, so I knew right away when he indicated the cake, with the candles still burning.

“Oh, yeah, I get it. Let’s do it, on three.”

Together, we sang, “Bark-bar-bar-bark, bark, bark ...” right through to the end. (I chose to join Libro in barking because I sensed he needed solidarity as much as I did, and the human language didn’t seem so sincere that day.)

Then I reached in my pocket and took out what was supposed to be my gift-wrapped present to my niece Peggylee. She was still texting, so in a gesture of ... defiance? resentment? futility? utilitarianism? I gave her present to Libro.

He took it in his teeth, hopped down, stood on two legs, clasped the package to his skinny chest and hopped a single spin to show me how happy he was.

I said, “Gotta go. Nice bein’ with you. I mean, you were the party, for me, man.”

He nodded, meaning “Same here,” and trotted off with the gift in his mouth.

I couldn’t help but sneak a look, because you always want to know how gift recipients like what you gave them. He’d gone into his doggie house on the sun porch and torn the wrapper off and discovered it was a book.

“Watta ya think, boy?” I said. He smiled, the way collies do, and lay down and turned the book the right way and held it between his paws and used his nose to turn the pages and read the title: “My Three Suicides: A Success Story.”

Right there he turned to look at me, like what the heck’s up with this?

“No, no, don’t worry about it,” I barked to him. “It’s okay. He’s a good writer.”

He curled his tail about him and started reading. “How many you up to this year?” I asked him.

“Twenty-seven,” he barked, “And you?”

“Counting Kindles, I’m at 24.”

I must have sounded dejected, I guess, because Libro looked up for a minute and barked, “It’s not a competition, ya know. Just so you’ve always got something goin’. Ya don’t wanna end up like them folks in there.”

Good point. I lightened up.

Ya know, it’s like they say, Outside a dog, a book is man’s best friend. And inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.

Hugh Gilmore’s five-part snoring series has jumped into the Kindle Top-100 Short Reads in this past week.