Death

My rug died.

There it lay, on the floor: my little one-hundred-percent-alpaca-wool pride and joy brought to an early grave by excessive drinking (wine stains), heavy eating (ground in potato chip and dried up avocado blotches), and general dirty living (dirt and dust brought in from shoes).

I had to admit it. It was far beyond any simple Carpet Cleaner resucitation.

Outside, the neighborhood dog howls.

"I'm going to kill that f-ing dog," Tosh barks. "It's EVERY. NIGHT. ALL. NIGHT. LONG."

"The rug died," I forlornly reply, gently stroking its seams.

"Sometimes, when I walk by the dog during the day, I dream about kicking it," Tosh continues.

"I could have treated it better. I could have covered it when we had parties," I continue.

"I know it's not right to kick a dog. I'm not a dog-kicker. I love dogs," Tosh continues.

I throw the rug into the washing machine in hopes of bringing it back from the grave. When I remove it from the spin cycle, it greets my nostrils with the smell of dirty decaying llama.

"This is why they tell you not to wash wool," I complain, vainly attempting to hang the rug over the curtain bar in the bathroom. Jackie sees me struggling and helps swing it up.

Jackie has just returned from a two-month backpacking trip around South America. Facebook narrates pictures of the Camino de la muerte in Bolivia, where Jackie careened via bicycle down the edge of a very sheer cliff. No one died, although a week before the guide had seen another guide lose control and fly off the ledge. When they were able to reach him, it was too late.

My stinky llama rug falls off the flimsy curtain bar. I drag its corpse back to the clothes drying rack. Still wet, it does not seem that any progress has been made toward its Second Coming.

Still Facebooking, I come across the profile of an old friend from college. It says he is living in Chicago. I am curious if this is true. "I was thinking of the time we had a syrah-induced writing frenzy in my suite," I casually lead in hopes of opening a conversation with this person I haven't spoken to in two years. "It made me think of you. I hope you are continuing to do something similar. Perhaps with a classier wine."

Two minutes later, his response: "There is no wine in my immediate future."

"This is very unfortunate," I concede. I wonder if there are very high rent prices in Chicago.

The dead rug, in all its dead weight, slumps sadly to the floor. I attempt a re-hanging. It does not go well. I smell like a smelly llama. The dog barks.

"Is water-ballooning a dog considered animal cruelty?" I ask. There is, after all, a party store located temptinly close to the apartment.

"What if we leash the dog and take him far away, like, to La Florida?" Tosh says. "Though I wonder if he would find his way back."

"We might have a week of quiet, at least," Jackie contributes.

I look in at the rug. It continues in its deadness. In the kitchen I can see Jackie crying.

"Are you chopping an onion?" I ask her. She is.

"I heard once that if you wear swimming goggles when chopping an onion it helps you to not. I wondered if my snowboarding goggles would do the same," she half-asks, half-states.

It is nice to have them all home with me. It makes bad times feel very far away.