Hey all! Last weekend I had the opportunity to help celebrate a friends’ birthday at a small party at their place. Good friends, some cards, some libations and general foolishness. My friends have this awesome dog, a greyhound that is a retired racer from a local dog track, named Rory. She doesn’t do much of anything though; she sniffs you when you walk in the door, lets you pet her for a few seconds and then she’s gone, laying flat in the middle of the room sorta like this.

However being a dog guy, and needing a diversion from another rum infused drink, I went over to a chair close to where the dog was currently spread out in the middle of the den and attempted to get her attention. Usually when you call a dog, its tail will wag, its head will pop up and it will trot in your general direction to see what you want; not Rory. When I called her she directed her eyeballs upward in my direction, gave me one (1) tail thump to the carpet, exhaled, rolled onto her back slightly as if to say “See this belly? You need to rub it”, then closed her eyes. I called her again only to have her open her eyes again as if to say “you again?” and then she closed them again after a beat. A good friend of mine sitting nearby was watching that whole dog/human exchange and laughingly said, “Me and that dog are just alike”. Naturally I needed an explanation.

He began. “Think about it, that dog spent most of its young dog life at a racetrack with other young competitive dogs just like it. Everyday those young competitive dogs got up in the morning, stretched, had breakfast, and got excited about the day; you want to know why they were excited? It’s because today was the day that they were finally going to catch that rabbit. They’ve trained, they’re fit, they’re strong, they’re fast, the other dogs don’t stand a chance; that rabbit is going to get caught and be a tasty snack or toy to bat around this evening. Then days, weeks, years pass and they’re laying in their crate at night thinking ‘I’ve spent my whole life chasing that damn rabbit like some twisted Roadrunner cartoon and everyday I come back to this crate empty handed. No rabbit is that daggone fast; hell, is that rabbit even real in the first place? I’m a Greyhound, ain’t a rabbit in the world I can’t run down. Is there?’ Then the Greyhound curls up in a little ball in its crate and cries itself to sleep at night.

I looked over at my buddy and wonder if he’s been drinking the same thing that I have but then I remembered that he doesn’t drink. He’s rattling this theory off stone sober. He continued, leaning forward while poking himself in the chest with his index finger, “That dog right there is me, I am a retired Greyhound!” His voice started to climb as the explanation continued. “For years, man, I’ve been chasing ‘rabbits’. Every day I think that this is the day that I’ll find that woman. I’m fit! I work out! I got a job! I’m in the starting gate every morning, son, on some today might be the day type sh*t. But every night I’m back in the crate and I ain’t got no rabbit!” He looks down at the dog that is splayed across the carpet at his feet and repeats his last thought, “I ain’t got no rabbit either!” The dog looked up at him, then me as if to say, “Is this guy serious? Dude, get your friend.” But he was picking up steam now, there was no stopping him.

He ranted on, “So you know what? I’m retired. Just like Rory. I ain’t chasing any more rabbits. I ain’t coming when nobody calls, at this age all I want is my belly rubbed, just like Rory down there.” Of course every time he said the name Rory, the dog would look up thinking that he wanted something but, of course, he was just using her name in the story then she would look at me again like “Is he still talking?”

He laid down across the couch on his side mimicking the dog and said, “See! Just like this, all I want is my belly rubbed at this point. All the chasing I’ve done in my life after these ‘rabbits’ I think I deserve the occasional rub. But I ain’t chasing the ‘rabbit’ no more; I’m retired!” He actually looked like the tipsy one in this conversation rather than me as he lay there on his side on the couch emphasizing his point visually and saying again under his breath, “I’m retired.”

Now, did I write this to make my friend look like a raving lunatic? Well, a little, but that’s beside the point. The main point is that in conversations I’ve had with a few of the fellas, the ones that aren’t married anyway, is that they have grown weary of the chase. That’s a curious thing though considering the ratio of women to men in this city is something like 18:1; with numbers like that you really don’t have to run fast, just point yourself in a direction and start jogging and you’ll bump into someone at some point. But just because the numbers are stacked against the ladies here I guess it doesn’t mean they’re looking to jump on the first thing with a penis (pun sorta intended); women are well within their right to set as high a standard as they want to get the man they feel they deserve, sometimes those standards take a NASA endorsed vehicle to reach but that doesn’t mean they can’t do it.

So…If there are ladies that read this blog, have you encountered any men with the “retired Greyhound” mentality? Giving no more effort than it takes to potentially see you naked and horizontal at the end of the night?

And should there be any guys that frequent this blog, have you been run ragged by the mechanical “rabbit” that, despite your best efforts, has driven you to the point of frustration that you simply want to roll onto your back and get your belly rubbed?

I know what my crazy friend on the couch thinks…how about you?

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