Clarissa’s Blanket

    She was here, but where is she?   This is Bobo and I’m not a clown.  Everyone sweats, pees, poops:  it’s normal, but I haven’t seen Clarissa in weeks.   See, usually when our family goes on car rides, unless it’s to a restaurant, we all go, but when Clarissa went, it was just her and Daddy.  No one else went, but just daddy came back, but when Daddy first brought Clarissa home, she laid down on this blanket and tinkled, the way puppies do, but she hasn’t come back. 

    Maybe she’s still in the garage.  So, one time when the family was going out, I got into the garage and I smelled around and listened, but she wasn’t there.  Daddy caught me, said the family is going to a kid doctor’s visit, so I can’t go on this trip either.  So, they put me on the couch with Clarissa’s blanket.  I think I smell some blood from that part of the month.  It smells good.  I dig a little on the blanket to make it comfortable and take a nap.  I miss her being beside me at night, but I can still smell her.  I remember her first smelling me, timid, scared, and pulling back.  That’s when she tinkled.   Nobody else noticeD.  She’s been tinkling more lately, too. 

      There are times we go on walks (me and the family) I can smell her in certain places, like she’s still here and I wag my tail.  Then, whosever walking me pulls on my collar and we keep walking.   I wonder if she’s walked at a different time and if she smells me.  That’d be nice; us smelling each other. 

      Then, after a month, my master does something mean.   See, I’m sleeping on Clarissa’s blanket and my master picks me up and removes the blanket, smells it,  and puts the blanket in the basket in the bedroom.  Now, why would he do that?   Then, he leaves the blanket with Clarissa’a scent in the basket and leaves.   Now, why would he do that?   I miss Clarissa.  So, when my master leaves to do whatever my master does, I knock over the basket and smell for Clarissa’s blanket.  After a few minutes, I smell it, pick it up with my teeth, and drag it back to the couch.  

     Now, jumping on the couch with Clarissa’s blanket was tricky, but I figured it out (I hold the folded blanket high with my teeth while jumping).   I put her blanket back where it was, dig, and go back to sleep.

*

    I wake up to my master yelling at me and saying things like:   “Stupid dog,” “Big mess,” “Give it back,” and other put downs.  Then, he lifts me off of Clarissa’s blanket, puts it back in the basket, takes me out of the bedroom, and closes the door.   I thought my family loved Clarissa, so why would they take her blanket away from me?

*

     A few days later my master put Clarissa’s blanket into the machine in the closet.   He puts things in this machine every week and I don’t know why.   Then, as usual, when the machine stops making noise, he puts the stuff into the other machine in the closet, that goes buzz when it’s finished.  So, after three buzzes, my master puts Clarissa’s blanket back on the couch, but it doesn’t have Clarissa in it anymore.   It smells like the fake flowers that come from plugs with something called FeBreeze in them.   I try digging hard into Clarissa’s Blanket to see if I can get her scent back, but it doesn’t work.  It still smells like fake flowers.  

*

     Then, my master takes me to the vet.   We go in the waiting room and he gets a brown box with a purple cloth over it, and I’m not brought into the vet’s office, and then we take the brown box into the car and my master calls the brown box, Clarissa, just like the other dog that lives here.   I think for a second, smell the box, but it doesn’t smell like Clarissa.   It smells like burnt umber and there’s a sheet of paper in there with a poem called, “Rainbow Bridge”.  

      We get home and he shows his wife and kids the box and they all cry (except my master) and hug each other.  Then, my master puts the box in the container on the blanket where Clarissa used to sleep, tinkle, and bleed, which I could smell until my master put it in that stupid machine.  

     So the box in its container is lying on the blanket that used to smell like Clarissa and I can’t dig into it or sleep on it.  Where is Clarissa?  Then, my master takes me on a walk and I smell her again in the grass and my master doesn’t rush me, but cries quiet, like he’s trying not to cry, but can’t help it.  Tears are salty and yummy so I think of jumping to lick them, but decide to keep smelling Clarissa instead.  

      But, my master picks me up and squeezes me with both his arms around me.  It feels like I’m suffocating, but I lick his yummy tears and he eases his hold.   He then says, “You miss her, too.   Don’t you?”

     I’m thinking Yes, I miss her.  Let’s go find her and bring her back home.  But then my master puts me down and I smell Clarissa again.  He takes some tissues from his pocket and wipes away his tears and I go potty and we go home.  

       Then, one of the kids named, Frank, comes up to me and says:  “You don’t understand, do you, Bobo?   See, our family’s had pets in the past and we’ve had to put them to sleep.   Put them to sleep means they’ve died.  But, when we took both pets to the vet to put one of them to sleep, the other dog became depressed, so we decided to leave you home.  Clarissa was sick with something called renal cancer.   Remember how she’d whimper and pee in the house?   Well, because of that Clarissa’s dead and been put in a big fire, like the kind we have in the fire place.  So, this box is what’s left of Clarissa.  Do you understand?”  I put my head down, put my tail between my legs, and prayed it wouldn’t rain so I could still smell her in the grass.  I understand.  Curse all washing machines.