Well the next couple of weeks went by pretty quickly as my newest (and best, I might add) plan sprung into motion.  We kept Lady Lawn Chair a plentiful supply of used corral pipe and approximately 12 tons of firewood I borrowed from a neighbor........we didn't want her to eat the cottonwood tree.....or our house.....or even the neighbor's house for that matter.

Meanwhile I was busy fitting out the trailer the freight company left behind..... the one with the shark cage and the solid lead walls.   Yes I called them to pick it up but they said there was no way they were coming close to our house as long as SHE was still here, So I stockpiled 500 boxes of rivets inside it and got busy painting the outside of the trailer.  Then I carefully lettered onto the side of the trailer........ "THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS" .......... heh heh heh....... oh this was going to be just too good!  Lady Lawn Chair would be riding on the "City of New Orleans"... thank you very much Arlo Guthrie!

You see I had finally convinced Sharon that my plan to show the not so lady-like Lady Lawn Chair at a dog show was a sound one.   Well........ maybe not sound, but it was the only plan we had since she had vetoed all my other plans!!  My wife can be so uncooperative at times but I wasn't about to subject myself to any more foot tapping, arm crossing, or evil eye syndrome......no sir......no way.  Only so much of that a man can handle in any given lifetime.

So we had gotten our new Caninus Raccoonus Arrivus Prematuris (also known as a CRAP dog....hehehe) registered by the AKC and entered in the Retired Lawn Chair Association Dog Show in......... amazingly enough......... New Orleans!!  Yes!  We were going back to that waterlogged Mecca by the sea that held soooo many priceless memories for me!.  The scene of the crime.... the place that started it all..... good old raccoon infested New Orleans.

Well finally the day arrived for us to leave.  I used an old piece of highway guardrail to lure Lady Lawn Chair out of the backyard and onto the trailer.  This furbag might have a poor attitude about life but on top of that she wasn't too bright either.... hehehe.  This was just waaaayyyy too easy!   As soon as she was inside I slammed the door, put 47 padlocks on it, wrapped it in concertina wire, set 66 booby traps around the perimeter and we were set to go!    Hooray!!!

Not wanting to waste any precious time I jumped in the motorhome, started the engine and roared out of the driveway!  But alas...... 10 miles down the road I had to turn back..... I had forgotten Sharon and the Maltese dogs...... <sigh>...... things just don't seem to go smoothly around here...... perhaps you noticed.  Besides..... I had forgotten to attach the trailer too.   Well I got back and got everyone loaded up and took off again, this time with the City of New Orleans safely attached to the motorhome.  But time now was of the essence!  It's about 1600 miles from our house to New Orleans and I figured I could make it in about 5 hours if I was lucky and got a good tail wind.  But I had to hurry!

Well 7 hours later we pulled into New Orleans.... hey..... I got stopped by a cop in Mississippi that slowed me down some OK?....It took me an hour to figure out what he wanted with all his "yawls" and "suhs" and then another hour for him to write out my ticket.  But finally I pulled into the show site and we found a nice parking place under a nice tree.  Then without warning a swarm of construction guys materialized and promptly erected a 12 foot block wall around our campsite!  Talk about feeling welcome!  Apparently the Show Superintendent had heard we were there with our CRAP dog and he wasn't about to let any CRAP dog ruin his show!  So now we were safely ensconced.... er... enconsed... er.... trapped.... no we weren't trapped it was more like.... well never mind... we were inside the concrete bunker.
 

Well in their haste to build that block wall these construction dudes somehow forgot to put in a door!  How could they have been so careless?  When I asked the foreman about this he just smiled and said... "I'm from New Orleans pal... and I know what you got on that trailer and if you don't like it just high tail it back to Colorado with that SHE thing in tow!"... he was not a real friendly sort, and also kind of dense... just how did he expect me to leave when there was no door???  But being a patient kind of guy, I calmly explained this problem to him until he finally relented and put in the door.... hehe.... he was about as bright as I am I think!

Well we didn't leave ..... no way.... not when victory was so close..... and I felt kind of bad knowing I had hoodwinked the construction foreman but hey... he'll get over it someday.  We had a quiet night in he bunker so bright and early the next morning I told Sharon to get old Lady Lawn Chair groomed up and I'd take care of the Maltese for her while she groomed the SHE beast.   Well.....hehe......about 30 seconds later I was in the trailer with the SHE beast, combing her coat out with a pick ax while she calmly munched on a box of steel rivets.  Sharon can be so unreasonable sometimes........

Well I finally got good old Lady Lawn Chair all dolled up gorgeous except for her top knot..... I wasn't sure I could groom her but I had spiked her rivets with catnip and she stayed fairly calm.  But I had a rough go with her top knot.... hey.... it's tough to tie steel cable into a bow no matter how hard you try and besides I'm left handed.  (I know it's a lousy excuse but it does work occasionally).

So you'd think Sharon would have had at least a tiny bit of compassion for me.... maybe give me a hand with the top knot you know...... but noooooooo..... she had to groom her precious Maltese and leave me alone to cope with Miss Furbag.  However, being the quick witted fast thinking type guy I am, I quickly assessed my dilemma and came up with a strategy that works every time without fail....... it's known as the "ah to heck with it who cares anyway" strategy and I decided to employ that strategy and show good old Lady Lawn Chair without any bow in her head.... and if the judge didn't like it he could tell her so!  "Geez Mr. Judge.... I told my wife she needed some top knots".....hehehe.......

Well it was time to head to the ring by then so I carefully wrapped the logging chain around Lady Lawn Chair's neck about 200 times.   Then I unwrapped about 50 of them because I had heard the judge prefers a loose lead you know.... I got a fresh box of rivets loaded with catnip as bait and headed for the ring.  The catalog said I was supposed to be in ring 565........565????  I told Sharon I never heard of a show with 565 rings...... she said the rings where numbered by their distance from the parking lot....... so ring 565 was 12 miles away!   Vowing to find a closer parking space next time, I set off....... it was show time!!!

I finally got to the ring after a positively tortuous journey which had taken me to an abandoned USAF bombing range and there I found ring565 squarely in the middle of the toxic waste dump.  I was muttering to myself about the lousy accommodations when suddenly I heard a voice through the loud speaker roar..... "PUT HER ON THE TABLE!"..... I looked all around but couldn't see a soul..... then realized the voice was coming from a helicopter hovering overhead!!  My goodness...... these dog show people are really becoming high tech...............

Being the observant type of guy I am I quickly noticed there was no table.  Boy this judge must be blind or a raw rookie.... hadn't he ever judged a CRAP dog before???  So I promptly hollered up to the judge... "Hey buddy..... you want her on the table then you put her there!!"   Now Sharon had already told me that I needed to shmooze the judges but hey.... this guy had lost it.... No body ever puts a CRAP dog on a table!!  Obviously this judge wouldn't know a CRAP dog from a knot on his head but then I had also heard he was known for putting up CRAP dogs...... I was sooooo confused....... this dog showing business was for the birds!

Then the judge yelled over the loud speaker...... "STACK HER!"   Stack her?... On what?   There wasn't anything around except lumps of stuff  that glowed in the dark and besides I wasn't sure I could even lift her!  Can we just dispense with the stack stuff maybe?  Sharon had told me when you stack a dog you put your hand under their butt and hold their tails a certain way but there was NO WAY my hand was going anywhere near Lady Lawn Chair's butt and besides that tail of hers was a lethal weapon!   Not to mention I was getting dangerously low on rivets and could only imagine the chaos when she ran out of food!.  Why couldn't I get a judge that knew CRAP when he saw it?  But no... I have to get some rookie fresh out of judge school who didn't know CRAP at all!!!

"OK....TAKE HER AROUND!!!"  was the next command I heard from the paramilitary type chopper judge.  So I started to walk around the ring in this yucky stuff on the ground... where were the mats for heavens sake???... but Lady Lawn Chair, alas, had other ideas.... she just sat down..........and wouldn't budge.  Darn my luck anyway!  I got the best CRAP dog in the entire show and SHE won't walk!  Oh woe is me!!!  The first two things the judge told me to do I failed...... now the SHE beast won't walk!!

I saw it all starting to slip away... Lady Lawn Chair wouldn't be a champion, I wouldn't sell her overseas for a kazillion dollars, and worse yet.... SHE would still live with me!... ARGHHHHHH!!!!!  I suddenly wished I had hired one of those big time handler type people because one of them could surely champion out a CRAP dog.... I hear they do it all the time!!!  I also had been told if things didn't go well in the ring you just smile real nice and flirt a little with the judge.............. but hey................... this was a guy type judge and surely they didn't mean......... ohhhhhhmyyyyyyyyy!!!

I Had just rejected without discussion the flirt tactic when suddenly a ribbon floated down out of the sky... and on it were the words I longed to see.....  "Best of Breed"...... YES!!!!!..... I had done it!..... Lady Lawn Chair was a champion!!!!   Oh... by the way.... did I mention that CRAP dogs only need 1 point to finish?  Or that since the breed is so new that just  showing up gives a CRAP dog its championship?  Pretty cool huh?  Actually later I found out showing up isn't all it takes, you actually have to leave with the CRAP dog for it to be a real champion.

I was on cloud nine!!!  Oh joy of joy!!!!    I was so excited I started to sprint back to the motorhome...... until I remembered it was 12 miles away that is.  Lady Lawn Chair..... now CH. Lady Lawn Chair I might add... had still decided she wasn't moving..... so I left her there.   (Can you imagine how hard that was on me???... hehehe.... but soon enough here she came.... trotting up behind me.... and you know..... in a sick kind of way I was kind of glad to see her.... yea kind of ...well a little.....OK not really...... but after all she was now a champion CRAP dog and I could boast that I was the first handler to ever finish a CRAP dog....... well in just one show anyway.

Finally we made it back to the motorhome and it was after dark.  The rest of the show was over, all the people had left, and as Sharon came out to greet me she smiled warmly and said "Congratulations Dear".   Awwww....... it was nothing really....... aw shucks....... geezz..... (I had to be somewhat humble you know.... even though I was destined to be one of those big time handler type people.....hehehe).  Then I looked over at our new champion and suddenly my heart filled with pride..... in just these few weeks I had tamed the beast within..... I had turned a raw show prospect into a champion..... and I HAD BEAT THE SHE THING!!!!!   I had  to be a shoo-in for the "Handler of the Year" award!

But with visions of grandeur in my head I turned to Sharon and said, "You know.... I was thinking.... maybe we should special her for a while..... I mean..... well she could be competitive you know...... and she showed like a dream today and I really think she might go places....".  My dear wife just smiled and nodded over to where CH. Lady Lawn Chair was waddling slowly over to the door to our concrete bunker.  What's going on?......Where is she going?.....Out the gate????  I started to run after her when Sharon stopped me and said.... "You remember she is pregnant?"  As we watched her, this miserable low life ungrateful bag of fur walked out of the compound and began to climb the tree above us!

I turned to look at Sharon with a confused look on my face (did I mention that I'm pretty good at that look?) Sharon, with tears welling up in her eyes (hey.... she cries when I step on an ant) simply said, "it's her time".   Her time?...........time?.............. ohhhhhhhhhh...... her time!    Hehehe...... I knew that..... Well a wave of emotion ran over me right then..... because, you know..... well I was sure going to miss that kazillion dollars!!!!!

How could she do this to me????!!!!..... Was little Miss Champion Furbag so tired of torturing me that she would leave me now????   But then suddenly I realized she would really be better off here.... in NEW ORLEANS!!!!    Oh sweet revenge upon this underwater Cajun hangout!!!   My plan had worked to perfection!!... well ok... so it wasn't exactly my plan.... ok it wasn't even close to my plan.... ok cut me a little slack already!!!!  But at least I was going home without the SHE beast..... ahhhh yessss...... life was good again..... and best of all, well maybe second best of all.... I could finally get rid of those darned laser vision night goggles!!

Well when the weekend was finally over and we headed back to Colorado, I have to admit I had a moment of somewhat mixed emotions.  The SHE beast had terrorized me but as we drove away from New Orleans I looked in the mirror and said, "So long kid...it's been fun!"  Sharon gave me a big smile.... I knew she was proud of me for my big heartedness and the way I was handling myself.   "I knew you could do it", she said..... "so I knew you wouldn't mind this..... Lady Lawn Chair wanted you to have it".

Well I don't mind telling you that my heart skipped a few beats..... no actually stopped beating to be honest..... as Sharon reached into a bag and began to pull something out!  When I saw what it was I just closed my eyes and sighed...... just what I didn't need!!  So...... if anyone has any use for a bronzed metallic pooper scooper autographed by the first Caninus Raccoonus Arrivus Prematuris champion on record...... Ch. Foxstone's Lady Lawn Chair...... I'll let it go cheap...... for say a kazillion dollars maybe??  And if you are lucky I might even throw in a pair of slightly used laser vision night goggles..... and if you are even luckier...............  I won't.

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