TheBanyanTree: Ash Has a New Trick

[Monique Colver]

In lieu of anything of substance, I offer the following.

 

            Ash has a new trick. He doesn't need any new tricks. If
anything, he could pare down his list quite a bit and we wouldn't complain,
especially since his tricks don't involve anything useful to us, like
vacuuming or washing the dishes or doing the laundry. These would be fine
tricks for him to learn, but he shows not the slightest interest in any of
them. 

            One of his recent tricks was learning how to walk himself. This
comes in handy if, say, one manages to slip away from one's person but one
still has one's collar and leash on. One simply takes the end of the leash
in one's mouth and runs. Fast. Without the trailing leash to trip him, he
can run forever and no one can catch him. He is, quite possibly, the fastest
dog on the planet, though I may be prone to a bit of exaggeration now and
then. Before he learned that trick, he would find himself free with his
leash trailing and would begin his run, but would then find himself tumbling
as he tangled with the leash. 

            He's grown weary of that trick. It still works quite
effectively, but his person has become more diligent about allowing him to
become loose in the first place. This is totally unacceptable to Ash. He
finds the pace at which we, the native inhabitants of earth, move to be
quite slow and ponderous, and he has no patience for either. Who can blame
him? I myself am often in a flit of despair over the slow rotation of the
earth around the sun. 

            So Ash has decided to take matters into his own hands. Or paws,
as it were. When he is walking with his person, he will snatch the leash
from the hands of the person without even bothering to say, "Excuse me, I'm
going to help myself to this," or anything of the sort. His first attempt
was quite successful, as his person was not expecting that particular form
of attack. He grabbed the leash with his mouth and dashed off, confident in
his ability to outrun not only his person, but the greyhound down the street
who was watching with particular interest. He ran past the greyhound with a
smirk on his face, and the greyhound gave chase.

            Or tried to, but he was properly leashed, and only succeeded in
bouncing back to his person. 

            Ash ran off into the sunset, knowing that eventually a car would
drive up, with us in it, to take him home, wherever he might run off to. We
just do as we're told. It's easier that way.