By Jeremy D. Wells
Carter County Times
When I was a kid, I didn’t fully understand the old cartoon and sitcom trope of using “the dog ate my homework” as an excuse. We didn’t have inside dogs, for one thing. A lot of the dogs we had actually wandered in as adults too, so I didn’t have much experience with the puppy phase either. If I had, I might have understood – as I do now – the incessant chewing they do as they’re growing and teething.
But even if I didn’t have the experience to fully appreciate the joke, I understood the point of it. Depending on context, it was either a lame and unbelievable attempt at an excuse, or it was a sincere and unavoidable situation outside your control – that sounded like a lame and unbelievable excuse you made up. Variations of this theme are a sitcom mainstay. Sometimes the dog is a dog. Sometimes it’s the breeze and a neighbor’s lawnmower. Or the computer dying just before hitting “save” on the final line of an important document.
This weekend, for us, the dog ate the homework when it came to getting coverage of the Olive Hill Homecoming parade. We were supposed to have two people on scene. As the weekend wore on they had personal issues arise that kept them from being able to show up – with the last one unable to let us know until after it was too late for us to be there.
We had our own issues at home – a series of minor calamities that are themselves the makings of a farcical weekend montage. A trampoline setup interrupted by fire ants. Weed eating stalled when a skunk sprays the dog. A yellow jacket attack during the dog bath. A lost wedding ring that flew off while I flailed about like that blow-up Misael Nuñez outside Tres Hermanos during a stiff breeze.
Imagine it as the intro to a forgettable movie where Jim Carey or Bill Hader (or, if you’re my age, Steve Martin) plays the bumbling dad just trying to do the best he can. Starting his Monday covered in itching, burning welts and hands that still stink of skunk. Then his windshield gets cracked by a gravel he watches bounce in slow motion across the blacktop.
It’s the kind of thing that seems over the top.
Ridiculous.
Absurd.
Completely contrived.
But it’s true. I swear. We really wanted to cover the parade, and other weekend events. But the dog ate our homework. Then he got sprayed by a skunk.
Contact the writer at editor@cartercountytimes.com
