God Hates Me: A Memoir

This refurbished entry (written a year ago) is a downer. Seriously. Just..don’t read it. Watch some tv. Dancing with the Stars in on. There’s no reason to ruin your good mood.

CHAPTER TWO: God, failing to mess up my life enough, goes after the life of my puppy.

The week had been going badly, as a whole. I was in the midst of a mental health crisis, my job contract had ended and so I was leaving an organization I loved while also becoming unemployed, I was struggling with my courses despite the fact that I had hoped to graduate already, half of my friends were fleeing the province (while the other half seemed to be constantly having sex), and I was trying and failing to move all of my crap 15 blocks without a car. Plus, my stomach hurt. I was poor and hungry and out of Diet Coke while the whole world seemed to be collapsing around my miserable shriveled shell of humanity…and that’s actually an understatement. Things badly needed to change.

It was at this moment that, uncharacteristically, I decided that my attitude needed adjustment. I was being too negative – I needed to look on the bright side of life. I have so many blessings in my life. I’m moving into an awesome new apartment. I don’t have to go to work. I have great friends, despite the fact that they’ve all abandoned me for foreign provinces or penises. Life is looking up.

So, I rearranged my new place so it felt more like my own. I discovered I suddenly owned three tvs, two blenders, two sewing machines, and four dvd players…yay?! I set up separate offices in my bedroom and my non-bedroom room, just in case I was feeling eclectic. I vowed to host sewing and margarita parties. I made to-do lists of all of the positive steps I could take in the coming week. Things were looking up.

My puppies were both staying in kennel to facilitate the move – I realized that I was ready and eager to have them home. Puppy the second was getting neutered, but puppy the first could be picked up that very day, a day earlier than planned…yay! I called the vet and made arrangements. My puppy was so happy to see me, and made me feel special and loved and important. I bought him copious amounts of dog treats and took him home to my new house.

Perhaps I should mention: I love my puppy (in case my four photo albums devoted to him didn’t tell you that). My puppy is my baby. My puppy brings joy and happiness to the world around him. He assistant coordinated Speakeasy. He’s a registered therapist. He volunteers. He was nominated twice for the next election (by the same slightly senile Kerrisdale man) and frankly, I believe he would have won. He knows how to give high-fives, for crying out loud. My puppy is perhaps the greatest puppy in the world.

So I was basking in the wonderfulness of my puppy and feeling on top of the world. After a few hours of cuddling, I made the decisions to go out and purchase a book a friend had recommended which was meant to further improve my mood. Puppy climbed into my purse and we rode to Chapters, where I found the book on sale. We took a different bus route home and got off a few blocks from home as a chance to explore the new neighborhood. My puppy sniffed flowers while I admired cherry blossoms, and we found a nearby school that I could take him to play.

I have always trained my puppy not to stay near roads and, for the most part, he’s listened. Whenever we cross the street, I order him to wait until the moment I yell ‘let’s go!’ at which point he is free to run to the other side. This is meant to avoid him ever going onto the road without my permission and to get him off the road as fast as possible, and while he still needs practice, that evening he was being shockingly good. Each street corner we passed he improved, waiting patiently for my command that it was safe for him to cross and dashing speedily to the other side with me being tugged behind on his leash.

We made it to the last road before our house, and my puppy looked up at me patiently and expectantly. And I told him to go.

The beige SUV turned into our lane from the left in what must have been less than two seconds. I remember stepping back in horror, and watching the front tire just miss my puppy as he jumped back, and then watching the back tire go over his abdomen with a sickening crunch. The SUV paused before speeding away and my puppy screamed. I tried to pick him up and he screamed more as I cuddled him in my arms, and a passing motorist opened her door and told us to get in – she was driving us to the vet. I don’t remember much of the ride, except that my puppy grew quiet as I whispered to him that he was brave and strong and good, and that when we arrived I had been crying and my coat was covered in blood and fecal matter.

Twenty-four hours later, my puppy was able to come home. There are so many things to be grateful for: the girl who drove us, calling her mom for directions, without a second of thought; the vet’s that was there, waiting and open, less than ten minutes from home on a Sunday night; the veterinarians who cared for him as I tearfully filled out his paper work; the friends who sat with me and sent my puppy their love as he made it through that first important night; and of course my puppy who, despite his fear of shiny objects, proved himself to be amazingly strong and brave. He’s home now, and still broken, his medication making him sleepy but in less pain. His prognosis is good, with no fractures or ruptures, but he can’t run for two weeks, or play, and it hurts him to wag his tail. He licks where a bandage covers his IV wound, and then looks up at me sadly and without understanding. Tire marks and bruising cover his tiny tummy.

I had wandered my house, distraught, during the night he was in hospital, crying to a god that I didn’t believe in, ordering him to make my puppy okay – I needed him to be okay. And maybe, when the bruising and pain fade, he will be. He might not run the same, or trust me to keep him safe from cars on the road, and he might be a little less friendly to strangers. I hope no part of him understands what I’ve been reminded of, harshly – that good moods are just moods, and that happiness and whim are cruel precursors to a more triumphant fall. That training your dog to cross the road on command will just make your heart break all the more when you tell him to run, into a car making a careless right turn, before it speeds away while your crushed puppy screams.