The dog ate my Volkswagen
October 8, 2001 | 12:00am
Well, not all of it, but he didchewed the vinyl right off my Volkswagen Beetles running board. And I didnt need to be Sherlock Holmes to establish who the culprit was.
I was giving the Beetlenot just a car, and not even just a Volkswagen, but a car-show winner that Ive called "my pride and toy"the usual weekly inspection in the garage when I discovered, to my speechless horror, that a large strip of vinyl was missing from the right running board. Around the tattered edges were what looked like sharp tooth marks. Next to the parked car, within certain chewing distance, was a sausage-shaped, black-and-brown mutt named Curly.
Im not a dog person, although everyone else in this household is. Dogs to me are like little boysnoisy, frisky, and smelly. And unlike boys, dogs bite. I discovered this to my great surprisethe kind of wide-eyed astonishment that precedes the flood of tearsat the age of 10, when I was naïve enough to believe in bromides such as "Barking dogs dont bite." (My neighbors nursing mongrel most certainly did; shed never heard of the saying.)
I never had a dog as a child; my only pets consisted of guinea pigs and white mice, who promptly consumed each other. In my 20s we had a tiny turtle named Boris, who waddled off one fine day into the cracks of the metropolis and has probably since prospered into the Godzilla of the sewersthat is, if a dog didnt recognize him for a crunchy snack sometime in 1976.
I prefer the company of catsof one cat, specifically: my marmalade tabby Chippy, whom Ive given carte blanche to devour and destroy anything he wants in the house (except, implore the womenfolk, their tortoise Persian Charlie, whom Chippy has taken to terrorizing as a means of dealing with feline boredom).
Chippys actually more charming than I make him out to be. The only non-living things he willfully savages are two rattan bookshelves hes designated to be his scratching posts. Hes the only cat I know who likes nibbling on corncobs; the mere aroma of corn drives him berserk, and Ive taken to leaving him a few kernels on the cob to munch on.
Come to think of it, theres an awful lot of munching going on in this house and in this universe. I guess my Beetle never stood a chance beside that tethered pooch.
If you think chomping on a Volkswagen is weird, give a listen to these other tales of canine appetite, culled from the Internet.
A site called The Hearing Center had this in its Q&A:
"Q: My dog ate my hearing aid. Has this happened to anyone else?
"A: It happens all the time. Dogs seem to like the waxy taste of hearing aids and delight in chewing on them. We have had patients who have had cats play with the hearing aids, batting them around and chewing on them. Recently we fixed a pair of hearing aids that had been partially eaten by a mouse! The mouse had chewed the battery doors off and had eaten part of the case. The message here is to keep your hearing aids away from animals when you take them off for the night. Most hearing aids come with comprehensive warranties that cover everything, even damage by pets and loss, so your audiologist probably will just smile and get you a new one (assuming you have kept your warranty in force)."
A man named Jeff at dataflight.com posted one of the Webs most enduring stories (and this is no urban legend, folksyou can check out the pictures for yourselves):
"Yes, it is true, my Weimaraner ate my new Pilot Professional [handheld computer]. I left the house for only a minute. She went into the bedroom, nabbed the Pilot off the nightstand, walked back to her lair, and had lunch. There were only scraps left of the leather case.
"She was very contrite when I came back home, but I couldnt figure out why until later that evening. I was looking for the Pilot when I suddenly remembered her guilty looks earlier in the day. I found the Pilot, or what was left of it, in her doggy bed.
"I have to give it to USR [manufacturers of the Pilot]. Her teeth punctured the back of the case, and she broke the glass screen, but she didnt puncture or tear the plastic that covers the screen, so no glass got out.
"Maybe the picture would make good desktop wallpaper. Its not much good for anything else. Weve changed her name from Fax to The Wicked Beast. Just look at her. What do you think?"
[I think that if I were a dog and you named me "Fax," Id make lunch of your Pilot as well. Calling me "The Wicked Beast" will endanger your Mercedes-Benz.]
A student at Temple University lost something far less expensive but far more embarrassing to the dog:
"I was home from school on Christmas break last year and I had an intimate night with my girlfriend at my familys house. After finishing, I disposed of the used condom in a tissue and threw it in the wastebasket.
Unbeknownst to me, our dog got into the wastebasket the next day, proudly walked into the living room and laid the used condom on the floor in front of my father and stepmother. It was as if he had retrieved a toy and expected them to throw it so that he could show off once more. But, instead, my father took a hard look at it and said to my stepmother, Well, at least I know hes practicing safe sex."
Lets check the mailbox. Reader Auggie Surtida wrote in to say:
"I was intrigued by your [piece on] typography. I didnt know you had a keen interest in graphic design. May I know your top ten favorite typefaces, both roman and sans serif? In your opinion, what do you think are the 10 typefaces that you will never go wrong, in terms of legibility, readability, elegance,and overall panache? Personally, I like Times Roman, Bookman, Helvetica, Futura, Avant Garde, and American Typewriter.
"What do you think of the psychedelic faces of the 60s, the posters in San Francisco announcing rock events at the Fillmore Auditorium and Avalon Ballroom [featuring] bands such as the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Co., Cold Blood etc.?"
Well, Auggie, many thanks for your message and your questions. Im no expert in typography, lets make that clearalthough Im what you might call an avid consumer and user of fonts, given the publishing jobs I get involved in. My own favorite fonts would include Garamond, New York, Book Antiqua, Times Roman, and Berkeley for serif fonts, and Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, Charcoal, and Futura for sans serif. Im sure there are other, better-looking fonts out therebut I dont know them and maybe I dont need them.
Ones choice of fonts also has everything to do with the material theyre supposed to carry and the context in which theyre supposed to appear. The fonts of the 60s and the 70sremember Arnold Bocklin and the elephant-footed letters of Peter Max?were very much a generational statement, an expression of the exuberance (or, if you prefer, the mellowness) of the age. The letters werent easy to read, but instant legibility wasnt the point; it was style and, yes, panache.
The same things going on these days, with cutting-edge magazines like Wired employing splashy layouts with bright metallic colors that can actually be a pain to aging eyes like mine. I guess Ill be sticking to Time, Newsweek, Macworld, and the occasional Harpers or New Yorkerwhich is no reason for anyone else to do the same thing, if you like your fonts hot and spicy.
Another reader is asking why the Aquino Center at Hacienda Luisita in Tarlacwhich I featured a couple of weeks agois open only in the afternoons, 2-5 p.m. Monday to Saturday. A truly world-class museum, suggested J.P. Fenix, would typically be closed Mondays for maintenance and open the rest of the week, even in the mornings. Thats certainly true of most museums Ive visited abroad, but Im told by people associated with the Aquino Center that theyre actually still in a "soft" trial phase while they recruit more staff members and improve on what the Center can offer its guests. Its a large place and still very much worth visiting if you can make their current hours, but Im sure that itll be more visitor-friendly soon.
And heres a happy birthday tomorrow to Demiher Tatays pride and joy!
Send e-mail to Butch Dalisay at penmanila@yahoo.com.
I was giving the Beetlenot just a car, and not even just a Volkswagen, but a car-show winner that Ive called "my pride and toy"the usual weekly inspection in the garage when I discovered, to my speechless horror, that a large strip of vinyl was missing from the right running board. Around the tattered edges were what looked like sharp tooth marks. Next to the parked car, within certain chewing distance, was a sausage-shaped, black-and-brown mutt named Curly.
Im not a dog person, although everyone else in this household is. Dogs to me are like little boysnoisy, frisky, and smelly. And unlike boys, dogs bite. I discovered this to my great surprisethe kind of wide-eyed astonishment that precedes the flood of tearsat the age of 10, when I was naïve enough to believe in bromides such as "Barking dogs dont bite." (My neighbors nursing mongrel most certainly did; shed never heard of the saying.)
I never had a dog as a child; my only pets consisted of guinea pigs and white mice, who promptly consumed each other. In my 20s we had a tiny turtle named Boris, who waddled off one fine day into the cracks of the metropolis and has probably since prospered into the Godzilla of the sewersthat is, if a dog didnt recognize him for a crunchy snack sometime in 1976.
I prefer the company of catsof one cat, specifically: my marmalade tabby Chippy, whom Ive given carte blanche to devour and destroy anything he wants in the house (except, implore the womenfolk, their tortoise Persian Charlie, whom Chippy has taken to terrorizing as a means of dealing with feline boredom).
Chippys actually more charming than I make him out to be. The only non-living things he willfully savages are two rattan bookshelves hes designated to be his scratching posts. Hes the only cat I know who likes nibbling on corncobs; the mere aroma of corn drives him berserk, and Ive taken to leaving him a few kernels on the cob to munch on.
Come to think of it, theres an awful lot of munching going on in this house and in this universe. I guess my Beetle never stood a chance beside that tethered pooch.
A site called The Hearing Center had this in its Q&A:
"Q: My dog ate my hearing aid. Has this happened to anyone else?
"A: It happens all the time. Dogs seem to like the waxy taste of hearing aids and delight in chewing on them. We have had patients who have had cats play with the hearing aids, batting them around and chewing on them. Recently we fixed a pair of hearing aids that had been partially eaten by a mouse! The mouse had chewed the battery doors off and had eaten part of the case. The message here is to keep your hearing aids away from animals when you take them off for the night. Most hearing aids come with comprehensive warranties that cover everything, even damage by pets and loss, so your audiologist probably will just smile and get you a new one (assuming you have kept your warranty in force)."
A man named Jeff at dataflight.com posted one of the Webs most enduring stories (and this is no urban legend, folksyou can check out the pictures for yourselves):
"Yes, it is true, my Weimaraner ate my new Pilot Professional [handheld computer]. I left the house for only a minute. She went into the bedroom, nabbed the Pilot off the nightstand, walked back to her lair, and had lunch. There were only scraps left of the leather case.
"She was very contrite when I came back home, but I couldnt figure out why until later that evening. I was looking for the Pilot when I suddenly remembered her guilty looks earlier in the day. I found the Pilot, or what was left of it, in her doggy bed.
"I have to give it to USR [manufacturers of the Pilot]. Her teeth punctured the back of the case, and she broke the glass screen, but she didnt puncture or tear the plastic that covers the screen, so no glass got out.
"Maybe the picture would make good desktop wallpaper. Its not much good for anything else. Weve changed her name from Fax to The Wicked Beast. Just look at her. What do you think?"
[I think that if I were a dog and you named me "Fax," Id make lunch of your Pilot as well. Calling me "The Wicked Beast" will endanger your Mercedes-Benz.]
A student at Temple University lost something far less expensive but far more embarrassing to the dog:
"I was home from school on Christmas break last year and I had an intimate night with my girlfriend at my familys house. After finishing, I disposed of the used condom in a tissue and threw it in the wastebasket.
Unbeknownst to me, our dog got into the wastebasket the next day, proudly walked into the living room and laid the used condom on the floor in front of my father and stepmother. It was as if he had retrieved a toy and expected them to throw it so that he could show off once more. But, instead, my father took a hard look at it and said to my stepmother, Well, at least I know hes practicing safe sex."
"I was intrigued by your [piece on] typography. I didnt know you had a keen interest in graphic design. May I know your top ten favorite typefaces, both roman and sans serif? In your opinion, what do you think are the 10 typefaces that you will never go wrong, in terms of legibility, readability, elegance,and overall panache? Personally, I like Times Roman, Bookman, Helvetica, Futura, Avant Garde, and American Typewriter.
"What do you think of the psychedelic faces of the 60s, the posters in San Francisco announcing rock events at the Fillmore Auditorium and Avalon Ballroom [featuring] bands such as the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Co., Cold Blood etc.?"
Well, Auggie, many thanks for your message and your questions. Im no expert in typography, lets make that clearalthough Im what you might call an avid consumer and user of fonts, given the publishing jobs I get involved in. My own favorite fonts would include Garamond, New York, Book Antiqua, Times Roman, and Berkeley for serif fonts, and Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, Charcoal, and Futura for sans serif. Im sure there are other, better-looking fonts out therebut I dont know them and maybe I dont need them.
Ones choice of fonts also has everything to do with the material theyre supposed to carry and the context in which theyre supposed to appear. The fonts of the 60s and the 70sremember Arnold Bocklin and the elephant-footed letters of Peter Max?were very much a generational statement, an expression of the exuberance (or, if you prefer, the mellowness) of the age. The letters werent easy to read, but instant legibility wasnt the point; it was style and, yes, panache.
The same things going on these days, with cutting-edge magazines like Wired employing splashy layouts with bright metallic colors that can actually be a pain to aging eyes like mine. I guess Ill be sticking to Time, Newsweek, Macworld, and the occasional Harpers or New Yorkerwhich is no reason for anyone else to do the same thing, if you like your fonts hot and spicy.
Another reader is asking why the Aquino Center at Hacienda Luisita in Tarlacwhich I featured a couple of weeks agois open only in the afternoons, 2-5 p.m. Monday to Saturday. A truly world-class museum, suggested J.P. Fenix, would typically be closed Mondays for maintenance and open the rest of the week, even in the mornings. Thats certainly true of most museums Ive visited abroad, but Im told by people associated with the Aquino Center that theyre actually still in a "soft" trial phase while they recruit more staff members and improve on what the Center can offer its guests. Its a large place and still very much worth visiting if you can make their current hours, but Im sure that itll be more visitor-friendly soon.
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