Good Morning,
Oh dear, I really have been absent for far too long. I thought that you all might enjoy a good giggle.... The following story is based on events that actually happened...I kid you not!!! Now Shane has always been able to write a story in a way that anyone who reads them can actually visualize the events. I would love to have his stories published, as he has a way of writing that would make even the most dour person belly laugh. You do not even need to know the people involved, but for this story I have put a picture of Boomer (Brindle)and Mo (Redhead) and a couple of pictures of Otis; one with my daughter and the other with my sister
Otis Runned Off Explorin' The Town, News At Eleven
As you may or may not know, Otislipps Watts, our oldest bulldog, happens to be the CEO of Otis aviation. Obviously the position of CEO requires much travel, meetings, and time on the road (literally). As you shall soon see, Otis accomplished all 3 of these events this evening. She even had a Fire Rescue Escort. A Dalmatian she's not, she may think she is, but trust me on this one.It all started just before 6:00 p.m. EST. Mary and I had just begun an evening of......tearing down wallpaper. Mary had bought a gadget from home depot that was supposed to be the one step wonder wall paper puller offer and quicker picker upper. It's this contraption that you pour water into, plug it in to the wall, and it produces steam. The steam is vented through this flat plate that you hold against the wall, which in turn liquefies and heats the adhesive, and the wall paper just jumps off the wall and into the garbage. Lemme tell you, it ain't happenin. Besides burning the snot out of you, the adhesive does liquefy and now it goes everywhere. I glued myself into a corner and had to almost get naked to get unstuck. My right pants leg has become a semi-permanent part of my body, at least until I decide to shave my right thigh hoping to release my favorite pair of blue jeans. I hope they don't mind at work when I show up wear two pairs of pants with different legs in them, one being blue jeans. I have a multi-colored tie that may go quite well.Anyway, midway through gluing each other and the dogs to the wall, we took a break and gave the kids (bulldogs) some animal crackers. Otis, being nearly blind, totally deaf, and bo-legged was quite happy to have desert. She needed energy for her journey; the one we didn't know about. Anyway, we took about 5 minutes off and then went back to work. Soon afterwards, Boomer stole a piece of wet and steamed wallpaper and successfully glued it to Mo's butt - honest. Mo almost whistled Dixie when I had to snatch it loose. I've never seen a bulldogs pucker so tight - water tight! We got distracted......Taking advantage of the impending surgery to unwallpaper Mo's behind, Otis made a run for it. Now for those of you that don't know Otis I'll brief you right quick. Otis is, in dog years, approximately six hundred and seventeen. Her idea of exercise is straining to toot, which she does very well. Her normal day's travel is about 11 feet, with bathroom breaks included. All the other distances traveled she is carried, usually puckering up while we run her to the backyard, sometimes "it's" playing peak-a-boo or peak a poo for those that didn't get it. Oh yeah, I can do this in layman's terms too, don't you know. If fact, Otis has successfully took a dump and never once had to touch the ground, it all happened enroute as we ran her to the yard. Realizing that she had completed her business before we put her down, we just continued the wind sprint right back inside and sat her back in her bed. She never knew any of this even took place - she was just happy to not be sharing her bed with a "Henry". I must remember not to send this to anyone named Henry in fear of getting in trouble. Let us continue.....Oh, back to the "quick" description of Otislipps. Otis was born in approximately 1986. Sadly, she was born with water on the brain and her mommy rejected her shortly after birth. She was nursed by the vet (who also did surgery on her reference her water-head) with a bottle and as soon as she was old enough, a family adopted her. She spent a few years with them but ended up being given up, after the families young daughter sat inside of Otis's (Whose registered name is Nato's Explosive Force, I Promise) food bowl and Otis, er, Nato's Explosive Force snapped at her. The Family had moved to Spangdahlem Germany prior to this; the same base that Mary and I were at. The next family to get her was a cruel family (we hear) and kept her locked in a basement. That lasted probably too long and she was dropped off on the side of the road one day and the German Politzei (Police) picked her up and brought her to a Teirheim (Kennel). A buddy of ours whom we worked with had heard us, SLAP, Mary just said US NOTHING, HEARD YOU (as in ME) talking about wanting a Bulldog and told us about her. We went down and got her in 1993 and she's been with us every since. We found out about her history when one day in Germany we had a knock at the door and this guy says, "I'm not here to ask for anything, but that dog in your back yard used to be mine when I lived in Washington". Wow! We talked for a while and then he went on his way......OK OK, on with the story. Where were we, OH, I was just doing surgery on Mo's behiney. Otis made a run for it, actually a brisk walk, ok a lethargic stroll. We were laughing so hard at Mo's designer diaper that we hadn't noticed Otis's escape. She successfully got down the stairs, or rolled down them, and off she went. Otis's distance vs time is usually 15 feet per hour, but tonight she more than doubled it. About 20 minutes went by and we took another break. Mo's was eye-balling Boomer and Boomer was eye-balling a fresh, wet piece of wallpaper, so we figured we better tidy up a bit before we continued. That's when we noticed, "WHERE'S OTIS"?We walked around the house looking for her - which we usually find her standing in a corner studying the architecture. She can do this for hours on end and never realize time has passed. Poor thing is now deaf and almost blind. She's just happy being able to float an air biscuit without falling over, so if you give her a corner, or even a wall for that matter, she'll stair at it and watched the shadow of the trees slowly crawl across the wall. This is top entertainment for her. We walked through the ground floor and then headed down in the basement. We thought that she may have made her first trip downstairs and had gotten lost, or perhaps found a better wall to watch in case it moved. She wasn't there either. We both looked at Mo and Boomer, who began whistling and looking in different directions. We knew that they knew something and they weren't talking without getting more treats first. We still weren't worried because we knew it would take 17 days for Otis to reach the property line so we had time for dinner, a short vacation and a stop off in Doylestown so we took our time. Mary and I then walked outside and took a quick look around the house. No Otis! Mary had just said tonight that Otis had walked out the back door and got lost, and ended up at the front door asking for directions. She (OTIS) was so proud when Mom opened the door and greeted her with a hug and biscuit, not one of air. We figured we had missed her inside somehow and mistook her for furniture. That would have been hard to do though since, as of this date, we don't have any furniture yet. It's all on the way from Vegas - that'll be another log entry.Anyway, we made another sweep of the house, inside and out, and came up with nothing. This was beginning to get strange. A Cessna 172 could make a trans-oceanic flight there and back before Otis could make it to the neighbor's so this was really strange. The sun was starting to go down so I went down to PEP Boys and bought a couple of flashlights. The powerful kind with the battery the size of a Pinto battery. One of those 6V kind that are so heavy you need to tote that dadburn thing in a wheelbarrow. Oh, my wheelbarrow tire went flat last night (just to let you know). We have shallow woods at the edge of our back yard boundary so we thought Otis has walked or rolled down there to take a look at what was on the other side. She wasn't there, nor was she in either neighbor's yard who I contacted for permission to have a look. I walked down the road one way while Mary walked the other. Both of us waving flashlights and hollering “OTIS…. OTIS”. She can't hear but we figured we wouldn't get put in jail so quickly if people thought we were on a mission. We searched the house again. Keep in mind that we are convinced that she had not left the yard. She never ever has before and the possibility of losing Otis is about as plausible as someone losing their house-boat while standing on the dock - it just don't happen.That's when we saw Fire & Rescue roll by with their lights lighting up the night sky like a Friday Night football game. I had a weird feeling come over me so I jumped in the car in hot pursuit. The Rescue vehicle made a turn about a quarter of a mile down the road and came to an abrupt stop. I caught up, turned and noticed that a small crowd was huddled on the corner. I couldn't see inside of the huddle, but it looked as if they were huddled around camp fire roasting weenies, except of course they were in the middle of the road. I overheard someone say, "was it hit". I almost sucked up my bucket seats. I jumped out and without even seeing what "IT" was, I shouted "that's my dog, thats my dog". Sure enough, Otis was in the middle of the huddle hoping that someone would feed her. She had just traveled a further distance in 2 hours than she has in the last 2 years. She was tired and hungry and still bo-legged. I ran up and someone said, "Look at her legs, they are bending in all directions, I think she's been hit". I looked down at her and smiled and replied, "Negative, that's Otis, she's retarded, deaf, blind, bo-legged, & 483 years old. The neighbors had started to come out in numbers now. The crowd was growing and I thought one of us was gonna have to start singing or something to give the audience something to see. I reached down to pick up Otis and the pressure on her belly sent out a Fart that was loud enough for the folks in the seventh row to hear. Keep in mind that I was bending over too so I had a terrible time trying to convince the closest 100 people that it wasn't me, it was the bo-legged 812 year old dog. Some of the older women were frowning at me. It was one of those 20 second Wal-Mart toots that kind of change pitch like it's climbing a ladder or something. It started down in the lower ranges and peaked after about 8 seconds. There it held a perfect C note for about 12 seconds more. I couldn't drop her and the quicker I straightened out, the more pressure due to centrifugal force was put on her tummy and the louder it got. I heard one lady say, "I bet his Mom doesn't know he does that". I thought about running home and leaving my car there but since I had Fire & Rescue blocked in I had to drive away. I told the one spokesman for the crowd where I lived and the fact that I'd like to make it up to them but didn't even have my wallet with me. I just told the whole crowd that I'd buy them all a Turkey and left it at that. Otis is home now. I just saw her sticking her tongue out at Boomer. By the way, Boomer and Mo are terribly afraid of her even though they easily weigh twice as much. Every now and again, Otis will walk up to them and just bite one of them randomly to keep them on edge. As you can see, it's been quite a night. We're all at home now and I have to go to work in about 22 minutes so I better try and get some sleep before I shower.I'll send another journal entry out whenever the movers come and go and let you know who bit who and how much we're being sued for.
© Otis Aviation 2000
