It’s probably unnecessary to publish a formal correction to an earlier essay since that’s really only applicable if you’re a news reporting agency. In addition, this corrects a case of misremembered identity of a dead dog so I’ve probably got no obligation there either. However, my since of fairness in a universe that doesn’t have any is the great overriding governor of my ethic so I must make amends.
In the story, 10 More Musical Bookmarks, where I related the tragic tale of record destruction at the paws of my toy poodle, Pepe, I mistakenly named the wrong perpetrator for, as my mother reminded me tonight, by the time of the great record disaster, Pepe was gone and Princess was on the job.
So, Pepe, even though I wasn’t your most ardent fan (I always hated your yapping), you don’t deserve the desecration of your memory just because I have a memory like a sieve. For that misrepresentation, I’ve gone back to the aforementioned piece and made the proper corrections and your reputation as a little, annoying shit is restored. For the sake of time, however, I’m making no changes to the picture that supposedly depicted you in the act because, frankly, we weren’t particularly accurate with your portrait in the first place so the picture could be any of a thousand poodles.
Anyway, sorry, Pepe.
As to, Princess, the real criminal in this sordid story, I should have remembered it was you all along because you were a miniature. A toy poodle like Pepe would be staring at a record the size of his whole body but YOU were just big enough to clamp down on that plastic like a Grizzly on a deer shank. After some more recall it dawned on me that the 3 records described in the story were only part of the destruction…there was more.
On that fateful day, another classic 45 record was demolished and when I found the broken remains of Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett’s “Monster Mash” I knew that an old friend had been taken from me and Halloween stood in potential ruins. But I guess some poodles lack tolerance for music they don’t understand or was this just a random act of violence?
Perhaps you were sending a message in response to me chiding you for your loss of bladder control when you’d greet us at the front door. C’mon, you had to know that I wasn’t going to be happy with you treating my pant leg like a passing tree trunk. You had anxiety issues. I mean, didn’t you ever wonder why we kept you at arms length when you got excited? I got tired of changing shoes…and for that you decided that Frank Sinatra must be silenced? Shame on you, Princess.
Or maybe you figure we should have looked the other way while you went on your merry sex romp with a stray in front of all my friends. Do you have any idea of the humiliation I suffered that day just because you and ‘what’s his name’ decided to hook up like a couple of box cars? Hell, ya, my uncle turned the hose on you. Years later when I went into therapy, the terrible image of the laughing neighbor kids…laughing and laughing and laughing. Was it for the hose thing that Little Eva’s “Locomotion” was derailed?
And, no, we didn’t have much money in those days and couldn’t afford to get you spayed but my mother fashioned a wonderful makeshift sanitary belt for you to trot around in. Maybe you thought you, being a poodle and all, were just too good to wear homemade gear and deserved designer wear? For this you gnawed on an innocent recording of “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence”? No bullet could have hurt as bad as those vicious teeth sinking into a fictitious historical pop song.
You see, this is why I never liked poodles. They take themselves WAY too seriously.
