Sunday 16 August 2009

Hear me now, "Bank". Yes. I am barking to YOU. You, thou grasping little Fagin, who have crippled our ability to live with your obscene and extortionate charges: I will not submit to it. We have had very little to eat, and then came the final humiliation; having our Internet cut off. Fortunately, I remembered that my partner had one kidney and a few liver cells left inside her, so I hopped onto my personal Ebay account and sold them to some nice foreign gentlemen. Things are looking up, thanks in part to my sales activities and mostly to my partner's lovely granny, who sent an unexpected £50 cash donation to our "Riotous Living Fund" (which, currently, for us means bread, cheese and electricity). So listen up, "Bank". You will not defeat me. "There is another way" say your slogans. There most certainly is. And the "other way" involves a locked room containing me, my teeth and an inordinately high amount of bottom gas. Oh yes.

On a more serious note, I am going to have to stop selling my partner's internal organs over the Internet. Already, some scientists are sniffing around, asking me if they can have a look at "the woman with 38 kidneys." There is only so much paid-for human offal that can get lost in the post...

I found it particularly ironic that my Internet access was cut off on the very day that I was poised to celebrate the birthday of this blog. Three years, since I first settled myself into a typing chair and began to tap out my thoughts to a grateful world. Pride, I know, is a sin. But I do feel rightly proud in achieving my third year of bloggery. And it's all for you, you know. If you weren't reading this, I wouldn't be writing it. So I thank you.

When last I barked online, it was to share with you the dawnings of my current state of horrific misery involving the cat queen opposite. I shall return to this wretched topic in my next entry.

For now, it gives me great pleasure to usher in the first instalment in a brand new series. I am aware that nothing will ever achieve the popularity of my first series "Around the World with Jasper" (check it out in my archives if you missed it). "Jasper's Famous Historical Characters of England" had only limited success. I am, however, confident that this will be somewhat better-received than the most recent serial, "Ewan's World of Cheese". That one was forced upon me, if you recall. I think I got away with only two episodes. There were other submissions from the dimwitted hound, Ewan, but I contrived to "lose" them. Eventually came the day when a piece on "Buffalo Mozzarella" was passed to me. It was not only delusional and foolish but also disgusting - to a level which appalled even Fizzy (Ewan's girlfriend, who amused herself by encouraging Ewan to deliver to me cheese-sermons of increasing witlessness). "Ewan's World of Cheese" was therefore allowed to die a quiet and long-overdue death. It was not mourned.

So now, to mark the third anniversary of this journal's inception, I thought you may like to read the story of how my partner and I came to be together. How the frail, silvery strands of fate entwined to unite us - and how I very nearly pulled those threads asunder with my own heedless folly. But be warned: the early days of my story are not pleasant ones. Grieve not for the helpless little pup, however. He grew up to be me. Whether or not that is a good thing, I leave to you to determine.

And so it begins.


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(if you cannot read the photo captions, they say: L: N.B. This pup is not me! It is "Curtis" from www.dailypuppy.com. R: This is me, Christmas 2008. With a bottle of "dog beer.)

PART ONE

I do not recall my earliest days, back at the very end of the twentieth century. I have the vaguest memory of a warm, gentle, loving dam (mother) and the sensation of suckling her nourishing milk. A dim recollection suggests a sister, similarly coloured to myself, with whom I explored and played. I know not what I was named - it certainly was not Jasper, however.
After about three months of being taught by my dam, when I was growing in size and confidence, and beginning to eat proper food, a man and a lady came to visit my dam's partner. They looked at me for a long time, picking me up and cuddling me. I liked the lady best, but they both seemed very nice. They signed lots of pieces of paper and then took me home with them. I cried piteously for my dam and for my natal basket for several days but then I began to get used to my new life. I had my own bed, which was just for me, and my own food and water bowls and my own little garden to play in. Every day, the man used to take me out to work with him. I didn't understand what he did, but we spent lots of time driving around in a big white van. I liked the big white van. We were high up and we used to go fast. In the evenings, sometimes the lady played with me and took me to a room with other puppies, where we all walked in a big circle and learned to do lots of new things, like sitting on our bottoms, lying down, and running to our partners when they said our names. I always liked those classes. The other puppies were fun to bark to and I enjoyed learning all the new things.
However, even though I was still only little, I knew that something wasn't right. The man used to shout at the lady a lot, and then he started to go out in the evenings in his big white van and not come back until late, when he would fall over sometimes and shout even more. The lady used to cry a lot and I tried to make her happy. Sometimes I could and sometimes I couldn't.
The shouting used to frighten me, and I always tried to hide when it was happening. They weren't shouting at me, just at each other, but it still made me very afraid. One evening, after a lot of shouting, the man hit the lady in the face. I was so frightened that I had an accident and wee-ed on the carpet. Fortunately, I was hiding behind the sofa at the time, so no-one found out. I was ashamed and embarrassed though. After that evening, the man used to hit the lady more. He always used to say that he was sorry, but the next evening he would shout and hit some more. After a while, I got used to this. I thought that this was just the normal way that humans behaved. I became less afraid and didn't need to hide so much.
Then there was one REALLY bad evening. The man was out, and I was sitting on the sofa with the lady, watching the television. The front door crashed open and the man staggered in. Straight away, he began shouting and using bad words. The lady stayed sitting down, but shouted back at him. He hit her really, really hard and she screamed. It made me very angry and upset and I tried to defend the lady, who had always been nice to me. As the man punched the lady's face again, I jumped up and bit his hand. Hard. He yelled, and smacked me across the face. Then, he picked me up bodily and flung me across the room. I hit the opposite wall and slid down to the floor. I was stunned, and began to whimper and cry as the man kicked the lady and then dragged her to her feet and pulled her up the stairs.
I cried until the pains in my head and my back stopped throbbing and I fell asleep. But it was my fault. I should not have bitten the man, and I promised myself that I would be a good boy in future - perhaps then he wouldn't hurt me again. This was my new life now, and I had to learn to behave myself.

To be continued...

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Good night.