Stopped in Detroit. Spent most of my time there wandering in thoughts of "why can't the rest of this city be as progressive as their airport?"
So I'm back "home?" (*1) in KC marveling at the realization that I've evolved into quite the dastardly fighter, disguised as a lover
In disguise... My parents hold it all together as I stand back in envy.
I still miss my dog K.C. (I woke him one August evening after a 15 hour road trip "home"(*1)... he was an older dog, I startled him and he bit the end of my nose off... no lie. My parents decided to put him to sleep after I left. I found out that he was "gone" in an email 2 months later from an ex-girlfriend that had heard the news second hand from a friend of a co-worker of my sister. I guess First to leave is always the last to know...)
but I did notice that they've replaced the carpet that I stained that evening, and that he's not buried where they said he was. I know what they did to him. In High School I worked as a Veterinary assistant at the Animal Hospital where his journey ended. Ironically it's where ours began.
He was found in downtown Kansas City (hence the name K.C.) in a tub of water with 6 other chocolate labs. They all had rubber bands tied around their snouts. Someone had left them to drown. "Someone" was successful in all but 1 attempt. That attempt became my best friend K.C. They brought him into our Animal Hospital and I was the only one that he would allow to "dress" his wounds. (The rubber bands had cut so deep into his skin that the skin itself had begun to grow over the rubber band in places.. this would leave him with lifelong scars that I could only see as beautiful.)
Anyway... long story short, K.C. came home with me to live. He was and always will be my only best friend. I hate that I didn't bring him out to North Carolina with me. I didn't have a yard and didn't think it would be fare to leave him all couped up in a condo. I was wrong.
Daily, I feel every painful ounce of irony in the fact that he has left me with the same scars on my nose that he lived with. It's almost poetic. I'm sure a lot of you will laugh at that, but I'm just one of those kids that loves his dog more than the world and I won't blush at that fact.
Now I'm just a kid with friends in high places... but cell phone reception is a big problem when you're that high off the ground... Now sometimes I realize that I've got friends standing right next to me that couldn't tell you a thing about me, and I've got friends underneath me, not by status... by 6 feet... and they're the ones I miss the most when I come "home."(*1)...
* 1 - "place that I technically did some growing up, yet rarely visit. Also see "church."
NYC get your bat... you're up next kid!
