by Nikki Attree
Trev popped into one of the big hotels to ask if they had any work for him (he’s a chef). From the look on his face when he came out he wasn’t successful, but he told us not to worry, there were plenty of other places to try and “something’s bound to come up”. We wandered around Scorchio exploring hotels, bars and shops, while I grabbed the opportunity to start marking out my territory (an arduous and lengthy project for any ‘new dog on the block’). Anyway, nothing did come up for Trev, so we went home.
That night things didn’t really improve. Sharon was still upset about “them ‘orrible cockies”. The spray hadn’t killed them all, and she found a survivor climbing up her leg while she was sitting on the toilet. After that she spent most of the night in tears saying she “’ated it ‘ere” and wanted to get on the next plane home. Tracey joined in, and started balling her eyes out as well. I thought about having a good howl myself. After all, I was really missing my dog bowl, and there was probably some other pesky pooch with his nose in it right now down at this customs place. Trev calmed us all down, and told us that “we ‘ave to make a go of it ‘ere, cos like, it’s a new start an all that”.
The next few days passed without incident until Monday arrived. Customs were due to deliver all the rest of our stuff, including my bowl, in the morning (yeah right, don’t hold your breath!). We waited all morning for the lorry to arrive, had lunch, and then waited some more. It finally arrived at 5pm. Trev tried to ask the delivery man what had happened? Why hadn’t they turned up when they said they would? Why hadn’t they phoned? But he just shrugged and kept saying “que?” as if it was entirely normal to be at least five hours late … which for him it was.
We were beginning to realize that things worked differently here. If something arrived some time on the day it was supposed to, then that was actually an efficient delivery service, never mind how many hours you’d had to stay in waiting - that’s irrelevant. Some people call this the ‘mañana culture’, but in fact it goes much deeper than that. It’s actually more like a whole alternative universe: the ‘Mañana Universe’ (MU) with its own unique laws and principles.
For instance, built in to the way things worked in this MU universe was the (relative) certainty that everybody would be late for an appointment. The game was guessing by just how much (the so-called ‘Mañana Uncertainty Principle’ - or ‘MUPpet’s Law’). If someone were actually to turn up on time, the delicate balance which is the ‘Mañana Space-Time-Continuum’ would be thrown into complete mayhem, nothing would work, and the entire universe might even be sucked into a black hole created by an on-time delivery man.
I think I’ve already mentioned that I’m a highly intelligent super-sophisto dog, and understand these kind of things. So I knew there was actually a whole branch of quantum physics devoted to studying how things work in the MU universe. A good example of this was the washing machine in our new home. It was a kind of ‘mañana washing machine’. You switched it on, and it made helpful noises for while, but then it would sort of shrug and go for a siesta, and you’d be left wondering if perhaps it would decide to finish the rest of the spin-cycle some time in the indefinite future - perhaps when the sun had gone down and all the other washing machines had sprung into life for a bit of ‘electrodomesticos socialising’. The mañana washing machine always knew if it was a fiesta day. There seemed to be one of those most weeks, and no-one / nothing worked. Again the game was predicting when they’d occur. MUPpet’s Law seemed to have something to do with it, because there was certainly a lot of uncertainty involved in guessing when a fiesta (or the washing machine) would spring into life.
We’d been here barely a week, and we were already finding out that things were hardly ever quite as they initially seemed in this new universe. For one thing, some things could be both true and untrue at the same time, without much of a contradiction, or anyone actually being accused of being economical with the truth. The locals had a phrase that you’d hear quite often: “mas o menos” and there were others: “temporary problem” meant “could take an unlimited number of mañanas”, and “no problem” equalled “time to get really worried”.
Another source of uncertainty in the Mañana Universe was that most of the time, things that could go wrong did inevitably go wrong, but sometimes they’d surprise you by working - if not perfectly, then at least a hell of a lot better than you’d ever thought they would. English-speaking humans have expressions that express the first part of this: Sod’s Law, Murphy’s Law … the French say stuff like “c’est la vie”, and as we dogs say: “Life’s a Bitch”. But the dogs around here say: “Mañana’s a Bitch … preferably a hot poodle with a cute little butt!”
Anyway, I digress. Fascinating as this stuff is, let’s get back to our story. When the lorry did eventually arrive, lots of boxes were unloaded and I had a sniff around to see which one my dog bowl was in. Predictably one box had gone missing, and with the sickening inevitably of The Law of Sods, it was of course the one with all my stuff: dog bowl, bed and toys. Blooming feckin typical!
The delivery hombre said: “no problemo, it no have nada important in it”. Yeah right señor Fur Brains, you’re barking up the wrong tree matey, now I really have a bone to pick with you. I started making my growling noises. I think they make me sound dead macho, but judging from the reaction I usually get, I think I need to work on them a bit more so they sound less like a knackered vacuum cleaner starting up. Trev looked at me and said: “maybe we can claim on the insurance”. Too right we will! But Sharon said: “come off it Trev, Gizmo’s stuff ain’t worth worth the ‘assle.” Excuse moi, but my stuff is worth quite a lot to me actually! After that I decided to lay low and sulk for the next few days, while the humans tried to sort out all their stuff (lucky them), along with the jungle of paperwork that they needed to live in Tenerife.
Paperwork here certainly involved a lot of work as well as mountains of paper, and even I had to have some. Apparently I needed a local dog license to prove that I actually existed*.
Of course nobody else bothered with this bit of paper, but my humans wanted to start off on the right foot, so Sharon decided to visit the paperwork office in Costa del Scorchio. Most people know the score and are fully prepared to wile away a few hours there. They bring supplies: food, water, books with at least 600 pages, sleeping bags … you get my drift. Of course this was Sharon’s first expedition to the office, so she arrived woefully unprepared.
She joined the queue to get a ticket with a number that specified her place in the main queue. Eventually she was given ticket number six thousand and eighteen. After about an hour and a half spent gazing at the counter as it slowly ticked off the numbers, 6018 was called, and she sat down at a desk to explain the situation:
“Sorry, I don’t speak Spanish, but I’ve been told that I need a license for my dog, Gizmo. I’ve brought my passport, and I’ve even got one for him. Look here’s his picture - isn’t he gorgeous?”.
There was no reaction from the stoney-faced woman behind the desk. From Sharon’s perspective she may as well have been talking to a robot. She looked at Sharon’s documents, shook her head slowly, and finally said something:
“Señora, it is necessary the photo copies from your dog’s pasaporte”.
Sharon had spent the past ninety minutes becoming very familiar with the well equipped office, and had noticed the rows of photocopying machines all lit-up and ready to spring into action, so she wasn’t too fazed by this request:
“Well that shouldn’t be too much of a problem, can’t you photocopy it for me?”.
There was a pregnant pause, a moment of tension and this-does-not-compute. The robot (señorita GrumpyBot) slowly raised her head and stared at Sharon with shock and disbelief. Sharon might as well have asked her to switch off her power supply and re-boot herself.
“No es possible! it is necessary you go to the shop. You get there the photo copies.” A hint of a smile flitted across the robotic features as she helpfully added: “you no need copy
all the pages - only pages with informations”.
Sharon was not amused: “but I’ve just queued up for an hour and a half ” she spluttered.
GrumpyBot stared at Sharon blankly, shrugged, and said nothing. Sharon knew that she’d lost this particular battle, so she got up and went to get the copies done.
Fifteen minutes later she was was back in the paperwork office. Again she queued for a ticket, waited a couple more hours, and prayed that she wouldn’t get Ms GrumpyBot again. The other officials behind the desks also looked like robots, but much friendlier models. Of course Sod’s Law came into play, as it always does in this situation, and you guessed it … her number was called, and she reluctantly sat down at the same desk and produced the photocopies of Gizmo’s passport. GrumpyBot shuffled through the papers, and again the hint of a smile flickered.
“You no have pages ten, eleven, and twelve. It is necessary copies of these pages as well”.
Sharon glared at the robot and replied: “but you told me to only copy the pages with information on”.
She paused to allow the robot to savour her moment of triumph, and then it was her turn to smile … “anyway, luckily I did copy all the pages, so that’s OK then!”. She passed the missing pages to the stoney-faced robot.
Ms GrumpyBot reluctantly continued with the procedure: “it is necessary I ask you some questions. Please to tell me the first names of your grand parents, your cousins, and is your dog having any little Gizmos?”.
Sharon replied with the first names that came into her head: “OK no problem - Gertrude, William, Tony, and Gizmo is definitely not a papa. He’s had the snip”.
“I no understand this snip …” but the information was entered into the computer, and Sharon was given six pieces of paper each of which she had to sign three times. After about fifteen more minutes of manic typing, and some violent stapling of all the various bits of paper, Sharon was handed the license with a flourish.
“Yeehaa, result!” she thought to herself, but her joy was short lived - apparently this piece of paper was only a temporary license.
GrumpyBot explained: “someone from the office is calling to you the next week, and it is necessary you come back here for the official document. Unfortunately I am on holidays, so no here, but one of my colleagues is giving you the paper”.
Sharon shuddered at the thought of another visit to the office, but she was relieved that she wouldn’t have to deal with Ms GrumpyBot again: “thank God for small mercies she thought” as she finally left the office exhausted, starving, and dehydrated.
It was the same story for all the rest of the paperwork. You needed the correct bits of paper to be allowed to exist (in my case) or to earn your living (for my humans), but getting the right paperwork didn’t leave much time to look for real work.
Trev eventually found a job in a Hotel, but the wages were crap, and what little savings we had were being eaten up fast. So Sharon started working part-time as a cleaner. What little money she earned was cash-in-hand, and she was part of the ‘black economy’ - no holidays, no health cover, no sickness benefits or pension credits. So it was cash in hand, and hand in pocket to keep me in dog biscuits. I noticed that they had started giving me ‘El Cheapo’ dog food which was playing havoc with my digestion, but they still managed to find enough dosh to go out drinking and buy cigarettes.
Once they were both working they didn’t have as much time to take me for walks, and they both seemed to be tired all the time. Tracey wasn’t much better as she was more interested in playing with her new friends, rather than spending time with me. Forget the wall-to-wall sunshine, and having lots of ‘quality time’ to enjoy outdoors - now I was stuck in the house all day. I started to get a bit bored with my ‘new life’ in ‘paradise’, and began to develop ‘Compulsive Chewing Disorder’. Shoes, biros, sunglasses, books, watches - I didn’t really care what I chewed as long I could get it into my mouth and alter its shape in an interesting way, or even better, completely destroy it. Sharon and Trev weren’t too pleased about this, especially when they had to take me to the vet after several of their prized possessions disappeared into my stomach.
Tracey noticed the problem first. One day we were enjoying a rare play session, when she shrieked: “Gizmo’s got something growing out of his bottom!”. I must admit I had been having real problems. However much I ate, and however hard I pushed, nothing was coming out of my rear end. So off to the vet we went.
When we arrived at the surgery and sat down in the waiting room, there were a couple of worried-looking cat-dudes in cages (let me at ‘em) and a maniacally yapping poodle jumping up and down on her owner’s knee. I soon realized why they were so worked-up as I turned my head and made eye contact with a massive slobbering Rottweiler, who was already sizing me up for his next meal. Perhaps he was there to get a few more tattoos.
“Hang on a minute” I thought, “I recognise that ugly mutt”. Surely it had to be Rambo, the Rottie with the ‘fur of flying’ who liked dressing up in frilly outfits.
“Hola Rambo, how’s things mate? remember me? we met on the plane”.
Rambo snarled back: “you speakin to me you mixed breed mutt? If you breathe a word of what I said on the flight, I’m not going to be happy. So make my day punk - comprende?”
“Sure, sure, no worries” I stuttered in reply.
“Rambo’s a pussycat really”, said his owner. Well sure, I knew that, but the rest of the waiting room were all thinking: “yeah right, we believe you … NOT!”. The cats in the cages were praying to The Great-Moggie-in-the-Sky that they wouldn’t be Rambo’s next snack, and the poodle was now clinging for dear life to her owner’s neck. Not content with merely scaring the shit out of us (not that it was working in my case), Rambo started shaking his head making his jowls wobble quite disgustingly, and we all had to duck to avoid his projectile slobber - hmmm, nice! Luckily it was soon my turn to see Miguel (the vet) and escape from Rambo’s warm embraces and bad breath.
Miguel lifted me up onto the table and Sharon explained that I had problems doing my poo. He started examining my tongue, but she said: “no no, it’s Gizmo’s rear end that’s the problem”. Perhaps he was just trying to delay the inevitable pleasure of inspecting my cute butt, and I suppose I couldn’t really blame him. Anyway, he donned the glove, applied the lube, and began to explore where the sun don’t shine. There was indeed something stuck up there causing a blockage. Quite a few things actually: bits of twig, string, slippers, gardening implements … you name it, it was all up there. God knows how - I didn’t remember eating half of that stuff.
With a resigned look and practised dexterity, Miguel managed to clear the blockage. Wow, what a wooftastic relief! Talk about an out-of-botty experience, but it was only short-lived. A thermometer was rapidly inserted where the detritus had just been extracted (as if I hadn’t suffered enough humiliation). Miguel was concerned that I might have torn something inside and have an infection, so he needed to take my temperature. Happily it was normal, so I got a biscuit, a pat on the head, and that was that (at least until I found some more tasty looking sharp objects to chomp on).
Things started to go downhill rapidly in the Gizmo household. Trev was sacked when he refused to do loads more work for the same money. They actually wanted him to come in two hours early and cook for four hundred more guests. Even a dog can work out there’s something not right about that, they were, as Trev said: “aving a larf ”. Then Sharon’s hours were cut, so very little cash was coming in, and the strain began to show. They were arguing all the time, and the rent hadn’t been paid for two months.
One day the landlord banged on the door and told us that he wanted us out in two days, or else he’d call in the heavies. Sharon just snapped and booked a flight back to the UK with her credit card, but she only had enough money for two tickets. So she and Tracey were going to go back first, and Trev would follow later. That night the family started packing.
Wait a minute, I don’t think I heard my name ment
ioned. I was going to need a ticket and some injections before I could go back to the UK. Tracey soon realized that I’d been left out of their plans, and told them that there was no way she was leaving me behind (bless her) but Sharon reassured her: “don’t worry about Gizmo, daddy will sort out a flight for him as well”. Phew, that’s a relief then - or so I thought …
The next morning Sharon and Tracey left for the airport. They each gave me a hug and said they’d see me again soon. Trev stayed with me all that day, which was great. He took me for three walks and gave me an enormous meal - real meat not the dried stuff. I slept really well that night cos I was stuffed with food, and tired from the walks.
The next morning when I woke up Trev wasn’t there. I thought that he’d probably just popped out to get some milk or something. So I went back to sleep, but when I woke up again he still hadn’t come back. I was really desperate to have a pee by now, so I had to relieve myself in a corner of the living room. I hoped that Trev wouldn’t be too angry with me when he came back, but I just had to have a pee or else my bladder would burst!
Darkness fell and Trev still hadn’t returned, so I started barking. Perhaps someone would hear and let me out for a pee. So I woofed and woofed, but all I got was the neighbour banging on the wall and shouting: “shut the fuck up!”. Eventually I got too tired to bark any more, and fell asleep.