Sometimes

Sometimes, the dog won’t get in the car to go to Petco. She’ll panic and she’ll stand there and she’ll start spitting out treats, which you’ve never seen her do, and she’ll try to back out of the car but the ramp you’re using to help her in and out so she doesn’t mess up the stitches from her spaying won’t be there, it’ll be in your hand, and in your haste to catch her before she falls the three feet to the pavement you’ll swing the ramp into your taillight cover, and it’ll crack, and you’ll surrender and bring her inside and go back out and pick up the pieces of taillight cover that fell off and take them around to the recycling bin. And sometimes, you’ll take the dog to Petco an hour later, when she’s woken up from a little nap, and you’ll just lift her in and out this time because you aren’t messing with the ramp again after last time, and the trip will go well but when you get home one of your neighbors will be there asking you to ask your landlord to remove the tree limb that you told your landlord about when it fell a month ago, and he’ll say to tell your landlord the co-president of the homeowners association is asking, and you’ll say you will, and you’ll take the dog out back and when you come in he’ll be back at the door asking you not to tell your landlord the co-president of the homeowners association is asking, because he doesn’t speak for the neighborhood on such matters, and your dog will bark her head off at him all the while as you assure him you’ll text your landlord, and once he leaves you’ll go to wash your hands and you’ll notice a bug behind the blinds and as you go to raise the blinds to access the insect, the blinds will come crashing down inexplicably upon the kitchen sink, and you’ll put them somewhere out of sight and you’ll get the dog fed and you’ll get yourself fed and the dog will move towards lying down again, and right as she does, the pest control guy your landlord sends every few months will show up, and the barking will begin anew.

Sometimes, the next day, the cleaners call, the cleaners you’ve hired because the house is covered in mud and you can’t keep up and you can make enough money working during the time you’d spend cleaning to pay the cleaners, and they say they’re coming a day earlier than scheduled, and when you ask to confirm that the day is changed they’ll emphatically say they’re coming that day, so you’ll shuffle up your day and tidy up the house enough for them to move around and fold all the laundry and get the dog’s toys into one pile all while the dog nips at your heels asking to play, and towards the end you’ll try to use the bathroom, just the bathroom, just for 45 seconds, and while you’re in there the dog will rip open a squeaky toy and the squeaker will be nowhere to be found except maybe in her stomach, destined for havoc in the intestines, and by the time you find it twenty minutes later, colorless and translucent and under the doorstand against the baseboard, you won’t have time to eat a real lunch because they could come any minute and you’ll have to whisk the dog away and go somewhere, who knows where, to pass the time while they clean, but then they won’t come during the two-hour window they said they’d come, and when you call to ask if they’re coming they’ll say the thing’s scheduled for tomorrow, which is what had been the schedule all along until they changed it on you that morning, and you’ll be tired, and you’ll be hungry, and a freak rain shower will pop up while you carry a TV out and down the block to take to a friend’s, and you’ll get out to work feeling fried of everything and zapped of everything and like your head is full of thick, thick syrup, and you’ll work.

And sometimes, the day after that, you’ll take your dog to the vet, because her ears smell bad and you cleaned the outside but the smell came back so it must be coming from the inside, and you’ll spend all morning doing the vet thing and a lot of the morning just sitting there waiting because the appointment before yours is running long, and you’ll know the cleaners are coming later and you’ll know you’ll have to find a way to pass two or three hours with a puppy in a cone and you’ll have no work done and much work to do, and you’ll sit there staring blankly as you await the tech to come in, yet again, and tell you it’ll be just a few more minutes.

But sometimes, the vet will come in with the tech, and the vet’ll tell you the dog’s stitches are healing well and the wound from her frantic allergic itching is healing well and the ear infection is mild and easy to treat, and when you get home your friend will be there, in town for the first time in a year, and you’ll eat lunch with him and laugh at the friendly dog and hear about all the things. And sometimes, when the pest man leaves he’ll know not to knock again on the door, and your dog will sleep sweetly through the afternoon. And sometimes, syrup brain or not, you’ll finish your work, and you’ll head towards home, and you’ll think to put Jason Isbell on while you drive under that big, warm, open Texas sunset, soft against the banner of rich, green treetops, and a moontower will be there on the skyline, and you don’t know why but the moontowers always bring you peace. And it’ll be ok. And you’ll be ok. And all will be ok.