eastsid-e:
“I’m a dirty boy~ I’m a dirty boy~” he sings while dancing in the shower.
You stare at his bouncing butt from where you’re seated on the toilet. “You are, and you better get clean if you ever want to be let out of this bathroom again.”
“You hosed most of it off outside.”
“Yeah but the mud’s in your hair and behind your ears – how did you do that?”
“Wrestling.”
You shake your head and rub the bridge of your nose. Your friend Zane had called this morning, saying his pup KJ was begging to go for a hike after the rain, and he asked if your Leo wanted to go as well. Zane knew not to ask you – you got lost in the woods as a child and never wanted to go back there. Leo was thrilled to go however. Water! Trees! Birds! Critters! Interesting rocks! Infinite sticks!
You got a foreboding text from Zane later that afternoon: “Hey we’re back in cell service and coming to drop Leo off. We’ll be coming up the porch out back.”
Why would they be coming up the back porch and not the front door or the garage door? You were worried Leo got skunked or something. Luckily it turns out that wasn’t the case. However, the case was, that he and KJ had found every single mud puddle in the entire state park and spent more time in the creek than on the trail.
Zane had made the best of it by putting down towels in the back seats, but you owed the man a beer. He looked exhausted and was grumbling about poison oak. But the boys were all smiles and completely worn out, which made it worth while. An exhausted pup is a happy pup.
As you sit there, watching Leo wash his beautiful self, you notice a red spot on the back of his thigh. It’s an ingrown hair. You insist on popping it, which you do while he whines. You insist it must be done. You make a show out of checking his back, the rest of his legs, and then his pubic hair for ingrowns – and you find a tick. You groan. “Leo you weren’t supposed to bring the woods back with you!”
__________
Captions are fictional.