A number of weeks ago, Beth Mesner, a good friend of mine and a professor extraordinaire at Ball State University, shared a story with me. She said that in the moment, she thought that it was like something that would happen to me. I believe that she is correct, but I will allow you to be the judge. 

Beth was splitting her time between her main home in Muncie (where she is a professor extraordinaire), her childhood home in Goshen, and her cottage in Monticello (which is where we met). On a Saturday at the end of the last school term, she needed to hit all three places. She had her trusty companion, Gracie the golden mix dog, with her. I don’t know what type of mix Gracie is, but she has bunches of dense long fur. Beth’s efforts to hit all three places in one day were thwarted by a road closing and all the little things taking longer than expected. She decided to stop at the grocery store on the way home rather than spend an additional 20 minutes to drop Gracie off and return to the store. It was a brisk, overcast day, and she only needed a quick in and out, and Gracie had been through this drill before, so it all made sense… until it didn’t. 

While in Goshen, it’s quite possible that Gracie had gotten into something and was at that moment, waiting to be let out of the car for an urgent release. Beth went into the store, only to return to find that poor Gracie couldn’t hold it anymore. In Gracie’s panic at pooping in the car (clearly a no no for such an awesome dog) she jumped all over the car, spraying diarrhea onto every surface, then continued to panic and run like a squirrel in a cage, rubbing any surface that may have escaped her earlier efforts. There was literally crap in the cup holders and the air ducts. And every inch of her dense, long fur was also covered. There were poo prints on the insides of the windows and doors, smears and puddles on the seats and floors. And that is what Beth returned to. And poor poor Gracie was so ashamed. So much for saving 20 minutes. I asked Beth how in the world she managed to get home. She relayed that she put the groceries in the bed of her truck, grabbed a large plastic garbage bag from a roll that she happened to have in the bed of the truck, covered her seat with it, climbed on in, and drove home in perhaps the most odiferous 10 minutes of her life. And she felt so bad for Gracie. 

And so Beth spend a significant amount of time that Saturday cleaning her car and her Gracie. And I didn’t get to see Beth until the next day, because she didn’t make it to the cottage until very late that night. I don’t really know what the moral of the story here is, but I’m very glad that it didn’t happen to me. Thanks for taking one for the team Beth. Oh, and Gracie and Beth’s car seem to have recovered fully from the crap car incident. Have a great Humpday everyone!