Michael Haase's Blog, page 2

The Tale of The Botched Dog Rescue

My wife and I are suckers for dogs. We have two, and although they are suffering the confusion and neglect that goes along with watching two human children grow up in their house, we love our dogs to pieces. This love extends to all dogs, really. As long as they aren’t complete assholes, which happens from time to time.

It’s a good thing we are such suckers for dogs, because the lost and needy ones tend to find us. Our oldest and admittedly most beloved dog, Maizie, found us, as I’ve written about before. Molly, our smaller and much more…shall we say…special dog, we found at a rescue and were drawn to her playfulness, even though she was prone to eating all of the cat food in sight. These are our dogs, and we rescued them both. We know that two is our limit. We couldn’t handle more than that.

And it’s a good thing we’ve defined this limit for ourselves, because over the past decade or so, my wife and I have rescued a lot of dogs. Probably twenty-five or so. And they all made it back to their original homes.

We are the types of people who will see a dog wandering around and get automatically concerned. If one is roaming our neighborhood, I will try to coax it over so I can figure out if it has a tag or not. Usually, the coaxing involves some sort of treat, and my process is perhaps too good, as I’ve rescued a dog that lives the next street over three times now. It’s gotten to the point where I believe the dog runs away just to get a Beggin’ Strip from me, knowing I will return him safe and sound right afterward.

My wife and I have stopped what we were doing just to get stray dogs back to their homes. If a stray dog with a collar had shown up next to the limo on our wedding day, we probably would have made the driver stop and let the dog inside before taking the long route to the reception, making everyone wait until we got the poor lost soul back home.

It’s not as though we have anything against cats, mind you. I love cats. Some of my favorite people have been cats (cat people know that that statement makes sense). But, my wife is not a great fan of cats, as one might have had a direct hand in the breaking up of our first engagement (another story for another time, RIP Miles the cat), and she also is allergic (though I’m suspicious that she willed herself the allergy, somehow). But even if we were absolute cat people, I doubt we’d do much to rescue them. That’s not to be cruel, it’s just the difference between cats and dogs. When I look out the front window of my house and see a dog crossing the street without anyone nearby, I think “Oh no, a lost dog!” But if I look out my front window and see a cat crossing the street, I just think “Oh, there’s a cat.” I don’t even look for an owner, because who in the hell walks a cat? People just “own” cats but let them run around outside. When there’s an outdoor cat, it’s more of a sponsorship than ownership. The “owner” feeds the cat and hopefully gets them to the vet when needed. Technically, I could “own” as many cats as I wanted, as long as I let them all run around freely. In fact, come to think of it, the fact that there are so many cats stuck in animal rescues is particularly tragic. I could go there right now, adopt fifteen cats, bring them home, let them out of the car, and then feel proud that I rescued so many. It would help with our mole problem…I must ponder this. Hmm…

But back to dogs. My wife and I are the rescue king and queen, as far as anyone we know goes. You know, aside from the people we know who actually foster dogs and volunteer at shelters. Alright, we’re the king and queen of random rescues. If your dog is lost and we find it, your dog is coming back home. Guaranteed. Unless my wife uses her mind control powers to convince you to bring the dog back and give it to us (Seriously, my wife is scary).

Which brings us to the reason for writing this entry. The one rescue that didn’t go so well. My wife and I were living in a duplex in Fairlawn, Ohio, and we got in the car to go shopping or something. About a half mile from our house, we see a dog step into the road. Naturally, we stop what we’re doing and get out of the car.

The first thing we noticed was that the dog didn’t seem well. It’s head was tilted to one side. At first, it seemed like the dog was just questioning everything I was saying to it with that natural, judgmental head tilt that dogs do.

Like this.But upon closer inspection, we realized that the dog’s head just wasn’t on straight. We checked out the dog, concerned that it had been injured by another car or something that would make its head all wonky, but the dog seemed perfectly healthy. So, we walked it around door to door for a few minutes, but no one seemed to be home. As those first few minutes passed, it seemed that the dog had no home nearby, and the dog’s behavior seemed to support the fact that this was a dog with special needs. It wasn’t walking straight, and it just kept looking strangely and blankly at us with its wonky head. So, we put the dog in the back seat of the car and took off for the vet.

The dog had a collar on, but the only thing on that collar was a license number. As this was a year or two before we had smartphones, we called the animal control center and asked them to look up the number. It was a registered dog, but the license had expired. However, there was still an address attached to the number. That address was across town, at least six or seven miles away. How did this dog get that far?

We drove to the address, and my wife tried to offer the dog food and water, but it wasn’t taking any. It wasn’t panting, nor did it seem to be in any distress. There was no way this dog had walked this far, was there? With its blank stare and wonky head, the task seemed impossible. Nevertheless, we trudged on, calling the dog “Tilt” the entire way (we name every dog we find if it doesn’t have a name on the collar. The names are usually based off of the dog’s worst trait, such as “Slobbers” or “Boner.” Hence, this one was named “Tilt.”).

We pulled into the home we hoped was Tilt’s and rang the bell. The owner was home, but had no idea whose dog that was. We asked about the previous owners, and the woman said she’d lived in that house for nearly five years, so she really didn’t know where they went, and she didn’t remember them having a dog.

Crap. This was going to be tough.

We packed Tilt back into the back seat and made our way directly to the vet. We tried petting him and feeding him some more, but he just kept staring at us, judging. Or thinking of nothing at all. We weren’t sure at all if there were too many burnt out bulbs in Tilt’s brain at this point. It was a great concern, because if we didn’t find his owner, we considered keeping him around until we found who he belonged to. That was how committed we were to finding homes for our rescues.

Finally, we made it to the vet, waited with the blank-headed dog, and got him scanned for a microchip. Bingo. He had one. We would solve this mystery in no time and be on our way to chalking up another fantastic, wonderful rescue. The vet had an address, but no phone number. That was fine for us, as we had already tooled around town once based on a single address. The vet handed over the the address and wished us luck. We walked out of the vet with Tilt, happy to be getting him home.

Back in the car, we checked out the address. The vet was also able to get a name for the dog. His real name was Hunter, and he lived…

At the townhouse right where we found the dog. Literally right in front. If there were a single house to guess at first when trying to find the dog’s home, it would’ve been this address, because it was the closest.

I looked at my wife with a little bit of horror.

“Did…did we just steal a dog?”

“I…uh, we just kinda borrowed him for the afternoon.”

“So…we stole this dog, then?”

“Yup. We just stole a dog.”

Of course, we went right to Tilt’s real home and returned him. It was on that trip that I realized that the look Tilt had been giving us the entire time was of pure, victimized confusion. To our credit, I swear we had rang that doorbell. Maybe it didn’t work the first time. It worked this time, though, and Tilt (or Hunter, if you wish) got to go back home.

And of course, we told the owner that we found him. But perhaps we told the owner that where we found him was a little farther away than the dog’s own front yard.

Then we ran away.

We have been a little bit more thorough in our rescues ever since.

The Tale of the Terrible Parking Job

Have you ever walked out to your car, only to find that the person next to you parked like a complete and total asshole? Of course you have. Did you ever get to meet that person? No? Well, yesterday, I got to meet one of these trolls, and I got to hear their incomplete reasoning for their offense.

It was a normal day at Target with the family…wait. No. That’s a lie. It was the Saturday before Halloween at Target, which apparently means that Target is as busy as Black Friday. I took my wife and two kids out to this inner circle of hell unwittingly, thinking only that it was a good day to get some basic groceries.

We had no idea.



When we got inside, we were distracted from how busy it was by the need to wipe the year’s first non-committal flakes of snow from the cart while we struggled to keep the little boy and girl to within arm’s reach. The lack of carts should have been a sign. Then, we marched over to Starbucks, because my wife was graced with a gift card a few days earlier. The endless line after we ordered should have been another sign. Coffee in hand and kids in cart, we started our shopping. The fact that people kept dodging our cart at the last moment and looking disgruntled whilst doing so, despite us driving rather predictably, should have been another sign as well. But we ignored all of the signs until it was too late. Cart full of children and basic human needs, we were approached by a woman dressed up like a slice of pizza.

“Do your kids have their buckets?”

What.

“No buckets? We must have run out of buckets.”

What.

“Oh well. Here, you guys can have some candy anyway. And keep looking around our store for other extra goodies today!”

What.



I looked down at my 17 month-old son as he gripped a wrapped piece of candy and stared up at me, silently pleading for any instruction as to what to do next. My wife and I started processing the situation. We looked away from our happy little family and realized that Target was swarming with people like so many flies to a turd.

“Why is it so busy today?” I asked the slice of pizza.

“Well, it is the Saturday before Halloween!”

My wife and I looked at each other, trying to decide if this was a thing of which either one of us was aware.

“That’s a thing?” my wife asked.

The crowd all around seemed to confirm that yes, the Saturday before Halloween at Target is, indeed, a thing. A terrifying thing. And we stood there at ground zero.



We struggled and elbowed our way through the crowd and around the other stations trying to push high fructose corn syrup goodness wrapped in impossible wrappers for my toddler to get into, finally making our way to the cash registers. We paid. We made it to the parking lot. We survived.

And then, just as we felt sure we escaped, we got to the car only to find that the person who parked on our driver’s side literally parked within a foot of our car. I had to get myself and my daughter in on that side, and it wasn’t going to happen without dinging the shit out of the car.

“I’m going to have to ding the shit out of this car,” I said aloud. I intended on doing so. We were not going to wait in the parking lot, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to climb in from the opposite side to strap my daughter into her seat.

Then, a voice rang out.

“Hey! I’m standing right here!”

It was the guy. The bastard parker. The person who decided that it was appropriate to park within a foot of the car next to him. And he identified himself. To me.

I still can’t believe that he sounded so offended, as though I were talking about his looks or his mother. No, I was actually stating fact. I was going to have to ding the shit out of this guy’s car in order to get into mine, and he got offended.

“Hey! I’m standing right here!”

“OH GOOD!” I said. “Because you left roughly a foot between your car and mine.”

My wife even giggled at the fact that this buttchugger thought he had a reason to be offended.

“Well, the person next to me barely left any room to park here!”



Then he just grumbled all sorts of stuff and we grumbled stuff and he just got into his car and drove away, making sure to speed through a busy parking lot to express his annoyance with us, as well as reinforce the fact that he lives a total horse douche existence. My only regret is that I didn’t say what I wanted to the guy before he got into his car. It was one of those situations where the best line came to me immediately after the exchange. Here’s what I wish I would have said:

“The person next to you left you no room to park here? That is a sad tale. Lucky for you, I’m a magical wizard!” Then I would have made some grandiose hand gestures toward the back of the parking lot. “Behold! I have created literally hundreds of other parking spots available for the next time some inanimate vehicle bullies you into parking next to it! I have done all of this just for you, my friend! Now make haste! Get in thy car and drive away, lest I have to DING THE SHIT OUT OF YOUR CAR SO I CAN GET MY DAUGHTER IN MY CAR AND OUT OF THIS DANGEROUS PARKING LOT!”

Opportunity lost. Oh well.



But why is this a plague? Why must we all clamber for the nearest parking spot? Why don’t we walk at all? There is a parking deck at a shopping center not too far from my house. The bottom of the parking deck is filled with spots that are reserved for the Trader Joe’s grocery store right across from it. This makes sense, as these people are all pushing shopping carts, which usually become inefficient on stairs. There are three more levels above this first floor of the parking lot, but the first floor is always busy, flooded with people vulturing for the closest spot, and it’s not because there are so many people shopping at Trader Joe’s. It’s because there’s also an LA Fitness gym right across from the parking deck. It’s these people who are vulturing for the closest spot.

And this is the strangest, most comical damn thing to me. These are people who have committed to exercising at a gym, but apparently not for practical purposes. They will go inside the gym and literally run on a treadmill for miles, going absolutely nowhere, but all of this intense training has not prepared them to walk a single extra flight of stairs for a different parking spot. They have to park as closely as possible, ignoring signs clearly saying the spots are for Trader Joe’s only, just so they can go get fit without having to walk too far to do so.

What is it about parking lots that make us unable to function unless we park as closely as possible? Why is “The person next to me left me barely any room to park” considered a valid argument for pinning in the car next to you? And why are people dressed as pizzas trying to give out candy to children who can barely talk and don’t have all of their teeth yet?

And since when has “the Saturday before Halloween” been a thing?

I’m not sure I’ll ever get answers to these great life questions, but there is one thing of which I am sure:

If you park like an asshole to the point of preventing me from getting my kids in my car, I’m going to ding the shit out of your car.

A Masturbatory Tale

Author’s note: if you aren’t able to see the excerpt below the title, just be warned that the title should have served as a warning, and if you find yourself unable to handle a frank excerpt from my puberty, then move along. In fact, here’s a gif of a cute dog that will serve as an apology for you having read the title, and then we can be friends again:

This is you exiting the post and moving on to something lighter.

Are they gone? Okay, now the rest of us can move forward.

I invented masturbation.

You’re welcome.

I obviously know I didn’t, but that’s what I thought when I was twelve years old. I might as well have. It’s not as though anyone teaches you to masturbate (thank god), it just kinda happens.

It all started innocently enough. Being a kid entering puberty is weird, and there’s no way to properly warn any other person about their impending puberty. I know my wife and I will have to start many conversations about puberty with our daughter and son someday, and even though we could be as descriptive as possible in what might happen, there’s nothing that can prepare you for the experience.

Nothing.

I was eleven when I got my first facial hairs. Fifth grade. They were stupid hairs, too. Just a few scattered on my chin and one very persistent hair on my upper lip. It wasn’t much, but it was just awkward enough that I couldn’t let it go. I had to learn how to shave. In fifth grade. All I knew about facial hair was my dad had a mustache that was older than me. This meant that facial hair and shaving were for men. I still wanted to play kickball and four square, but now I had to shave. What did it all mean?

And I became interested in girls. I had always been interested in girls, and had used the word “girlfriend” without any meaning, but now I wanted one to cuddle with. Ew. Cuddling is for your mom, not Stacy who sits two desks in front of you. Why do I want to cuddle Stacy?

And the random boners were the worst. Ask any guy. There was nothing sexual for me about fifth grade, but my body disagreed. My body was priming itself. I’d be sitting in religion class in Catholic school, barely paying attention, when my penis just stiffened up. What a stereotypical place to get your first memorable boner: Catholic school religion class. It hurt in the strangest way. It pressed against my uniform pants. It was embarrassing. I pleaded to go to the bathroom.

I had always wondered why the bathroom urinals ran from about mid-bellybutton to the floor. Up until this point, I had always pointed my stream straight at the floor, kinda aiming at a urinal cake to release the scent or pushing a chewed piece of gum around the drain. I never saw a use for the rest of the urinal that ran up to my bellybutton before that day. I was more than thankful for it. With my little boner in my hand, I forced a stream of pee out. (Luckily, guys always have to pee. We can anytime, anywhere. It’s that way for all of us up until our prostates disapprove, blocking this ability). It went straight ahead, kinda splashing me a little, forcing me to step back. And as the pee overcame the boner, my stream steadily fell down, slowly, until it came to rest on the pink urinal cake.

Relief.

What was that? Why did my wiener go stiff? I contemplated these questions as I finished religion class.

At some point, my mom began a conversation with me about puberty. She gave me a book called “What’s Happening To Me?” which is an illustrated book that’s very realistic and factual about sexual changes and pubescent problems. It was a good book. And I did eventually read it. The first time I read it, however, was at the dinner table. We were all in good moods, and everyone was being funny. I decided it would be funny to read out of this book to everyone. I picked a random spot.

“What is mas-ter-bah-shon?”

I believe that’s how I pronounced it. I certainly didn’t get it right on the first try. My fourteen year old sister went pink in the face and tried to snatch the book away from me. My mother, being someone with a master’s degree in Victorian literature from Duke University, simply laughed and told me how to correctly pronounce “masturbation.” I continued to read the passage about masturbation while running away from my embarrassed sister. Under these circumstances, there was no way for me to absorb what I was reading. I still had never heard of what masturbation was, and I never revisited the passage, because it talked about touching yourself, which just sounded weird.

Basically my reaction.

About a year later, the boners became more frequent, but not any more useful. They simply made me grateful for the design of Catholic school urinals. One night, I got one while I was trying to sleep. I was face down on my sheets. The boner went up. I kinda shifted my hips to itch it in a way, but this time, it felt good. I was surprised. Naturally, I kept going.

It’s really weird, thinking back. As an adult masturbator, you require imagery and the right situation to masturbate. Sometimes you need tools or a helper. It gets complicated. Back then, on that fateful night, I thought of nobody and nothing. It just felt good. This masturbation was pure. So I kept going and going.

When the inevitable happened, I panicked. I had no clue, at all, whatsoever, what had just happened to my weenie. There was goo everywhere. Until I turned on a light and looked at it, I thought there was a chance that it could be blood, like I hurt myself or something. Then I saw that it didn’t really have a color. It was just kinda clear and all over my PJ’s and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sheets. I slunk off to the bathroom to clean up and make sure I could still pee. I could, so I figured that I hadn’t broken anything.

As this “problem” involved my penis, and at that point in my life my penis was only for peeing, and seeing as how I could still pee, I told no one about this. I didn’t ask mom or dad, I didn’t ask my friends, I just accepted that it happened. And it felt good.

I did some research. With the aid of “What’s Happening To Me?” and the copies of “Our Bodies, Ourselves” and “The Joy of Sex” that stayed out in plain sight on our back porch and served as an implied sex talk, I finally figured out that I had masturbated, had something called an “orgasm,” and most boys experience a “wet dream” to kick off puberty. I didn’t have the wet dream, though. I just kicked off my own puberty by dry humping one of the Ninja Turtles. I didn’t have a wet dream until I was in my twenties, actually.

So, I didn’t actually invent masturbation after all. But I thought I had for a couple of days. Then I found out it was normal, and started doing it all the time. Then the imagery became involved, and Elle MacPherson was involved, Sports Illustrated swimsuit models were involved…it got worse as puberty marched on.

I remember having a session while I was in middle school, and I imagined a woman actually using her lips on me. It was a great turn on, but I thought afterward, “no woman would ever do THAT!”

So, I concede, I did not actually invent masturbation.

But I did invent oral sex.

You’re welcome.