The 6 Thoughts I have While Walking My Dog At 2 A.M.

Given that I’m a night person, walking my very demanding Great Dane at 2 a.m. happens more often than you might think. He’s also scared of the dark so while it may seem like I have the perfect guard with me while I’m out there letting him do his business, he’s actually a big-ass Scooby of a dog who would piss himself and go running for the house as soon as he saw anything that doesn’t belong in the yard.

1. This is how scary movies start.

If a zombie apocalypse started, I’m pretty fucking sure it would be in the cities where congested populations live and cough and snot and things on each other all the time instead of out here where I barely have to speak to anyone throughout my day except for said demanding dog (and the other animals here…and the extroverted kid that never stops talking). But, you really couldn’t convince me of that at 2 am when I hear every little thing in the pine forest across the road and imagine an undead figure stumbling out of the trees wearing a hockey mask and carrying Freddy’s clawed hand under one arm and a hatchet in the other. Whispering “what the fuck was that?????” to the dog like I’m going to get a reply in English doesn’t really do much to help me feel better either.

2. Why do I always forget my pocket knife in the house?

I bought myself a pretty teal Kershaw pocket knife just because…well…you never know. I never remember to have it with me in situations where you never know like if a knife-wielding maniac in a Scream mask came rushing out of the forest. And, let’s face it—even if I did manage to have it on me, I’d probably stop dead in my tracks and piss myself along with the dog before I’d ever even think to grab it and become the knife-wielding dog walker in pajamas.

3. I need pajamas that are less revealing.

I never PLAN on walking the dog at 2 am even though it happens quite often, so you’d think I’d have taken care of this by now. Perhaps I’m hoping I can mesmerize any gun toting mad men with the jiggle of my not-entirely-covered ass cheeks. Perhaps I realize the futility in trying to buy pajamas anymore since the last time I bought anything, my ass cheeks still weren’t covered and the nightgown turned out to be quite sheer ( I swear it didn’t look it in the store). Either way, I’m just hoping the nearby neighbors aren’t insomniacs because they’re getting an eyeful if they are, and I don’t think the old guy’s heart can take it.

4. How the fuck do you even piss that much?

I’m not sure how big exactly my dog’s bladder is. It’s not something I ever felt the need to look up, but it must hold at least 17 gallons of urine. He pees before we even get into the yard all that well…an entire river of yellow. He pees on this spot and that spot and another spot. I scream “not on my fucking trees” 500 times. He pees again. And again. We’re not just talking about marking either because he has a different stance for each. For marking he does a lazy, old man half-mast leg hike (he’s old and has arthritis…poor guy can’t do a full lift) and for regular urination he does this weird half-lean, half-point pose that gives him much more gravitas than he deserves considering the puddle he’s making. But either way, marking or no, I am pretty sure his entire body is a urine cavity while I’m stuck with a bladder the size of a thimble (just ask anyone who has ever gone on a road trip with me). So while I’m waiting on a skulking monster to come streaking onto my property, the dog is leisurely peeing for what feels like 300 hours. It does not bode well for my nighttime-walk anxiety, and I end up yelling “couldyoujusttakeyourdumpalreadyFORFUCKSSAKE??”

5. Did I really just step in that?

Well… that’s the great part about living in the middle of nowhere… You get all the beauty of the stars in the night sky because there are really no lights out here to detract from the view. It’s gorgeous. It really is. But that also means that it’s blacker than Sean Hannity’s cold, cold heart some nights and no flashlight can really give me a good view of just exactly where I’m stepping especially when most of the time I’m using said flashlight to scan the tree line for hipster werewolves in torn skinny jeans and flannel shirts—the scariest of all werewolves.

6. I should have done this BEFORE I had a drink.

I’m not a major drinker…not daily or anything. But on occasion after a long, frustrating day, a glass of whiskey and ginger ale hits the proverbial spot. It seems to me that these are the nights that the dog always, always has to go. These are the nights when I would most definitely fall down while trying to run like every woman in every horror movie ever if anything did actually appear in the yard like the multitudes of coyotes I always hear or a human-flesh-loving Sasquatch or the neighbor’s unsocialized and scary pit bulls (that have gotten loose more times than I can count over the years and even pinned me in a vehicle on occasion like that fucking scene out of Cujo…yikes). And of course by the time I get him out there and he pees 98 gallons worth of whatever he’s been drinking out of the toilet and the sink and my cup then I have to pee and it’s just a big fucking fiasco.

The dog is going on 8 years old which is senior citizen status for Great Danes, and I have yet to see a knife-wielding maniac running from the tree line from the horde of zombies being smashed by the Sasquatch that was just attacked by a hipster werewolf in a hockey mask, but I’m not betting against it. So, think of me when you happen to wake up at 2 am to pee and hope that somehow I mesmerized those fools with my jiggly ass cheeks long enough to get out my trusty little teal pocket knife that I finally remembered to bring with me since we all know the dog left me standing there in his dust to beat me to the house.