Life and death of Mr. Sausage-Rope.

I have mentioned in the past how much Pooch loves Pigface, her hysterically pink puffer fish-pig squeaky toy. But once upon a time, in the grocery store, I bought another potential friend for her.

Mr. Sausage-Rope.

There he was, hanging from a rope with the other members of his family, just people-watching. I picked him up, dangled him back and forth a little, evaluated his shape, colour and all the little faces on all the little sausages. Briefly I wondered what it would smell like, but then I pictured myself standing there, in the middle of isle 4 while sniffing a dog toy, and changed my mind.

Into my little, blue basket went Mr. Sausage-Rope. He didn’t even have time to pack or say goodbye to his family. But I suppose that they had prepared for one of them getting bought, and that they’d therefore done all the goodbye-hugs-and-kisses-stuff. That would make the most sense.

The first thing Pooch did when she was given Mr. Sausage-Rope, was to remove one of his noses. Actually, “remove” might be the wrong word. She held him down with her front paws, grabbed his nose with her teeth and tore it off, along with his mouth and parts of his right eye. Then she spent half an hour bouncing around the apartment whilst throwing the nose up into the air and catching it again and again.

Then, after the original carnage, Pooch was content to carry Mr. Sausage-Rope around in her mouth, giving him a thorough shake every once in a while. Early one morning, I found Mr. Sausage-Rope in a corner of the kitchen, where Pooch had tossed him the night before. One of his sausages had gone mysteriously missing. The rest didn't have noses anymore.

Pooch was sleeping in the sofa, like a little angel. A little angel covered in small, brown pieces of plastic. Some of which had what looked like a nose on them.