A Dog Named "Skateboard"
Who was only a stranger at home?
Who was ground down in the end?
Who was found dead on the phone?
Who was dragged down by the stone?
Pink Floyd - "Dogs" - Animals - 1977
Deciding on whose turf on Appendices to put this sad story was dilemmatic, for Mutchie was a victim, not a protagonist. I opted to put this in her corner because Skateboard was her dog, it's not possible for me to be certain of the lead offender in this atrocity, and More Mutchie Stuff was short on entries.
However, given the fact that the dominant females in our family tended strongly to use their less-unhealthy husbands as errand boys, plus Reagan's solid history of being a half-assed slacker, I'm quite confident I know who the primary culprit is. Still, any and all Flozberks who had a role in taking care of Skateboard bear responsibility for this abject disgrace, with Neila, the indisputable leader of her camp, prominent in that dishonor roll.
Even Dad should have checked on the poor dog sooner than he did, and he readily acknowledged that on his own. But, like so many others, he ended up heartbroken after making the dire mistake of trusting The Flozberks.
As described in detail on Neila's KOOKS page, Dad stopped by Mutchie's house to check on her dog, entrusted to The Flozrats' care, and found it in inexcusably horrific condition. He rushed it to the vet, who cited the level of neglect as criminal, and euthanasia had to be resorted to. Never did I see Dad so disgusted and rattled.
I often wonder how Skateboard's demise was described, if at all, to Mutchie. Dad was not really a snitch or rabblerouser, so I doubt he spilled the rotten beans to the frail old lady. And, as we well know, The Flozclods are not exactly renowned for being honest or taking accountability for their many faceplants.
It's exceedingly likely the answer will remain known only by those still alive who were there, and I'd expect them to whitewash it even to themselves.
This was but one of many remarkably bleak canine calamities suffered under the watch of various Flozberks.
Dang! But WHY Would a Sane Adult Call a Dog "Skateboard"
That's a dang fine question!
Answer: Because we rode that dog's figurative corpse like a skateboard in impressing upon Dad that The Flozberks were spectacularly unworthy of his trust.
As the brutal year 2018 wore on, a power struggle over Dad between my stable, meticulous camp and Neila's desperate, parasitic, secretive, overwrought, haphazard camp unfolded.
By late August, I was finally able to convince Dad to at least consult with an exceptionally fair and ethical attorney who was selected with great care. Unfortunately, Neila leaned on him hard to leave things as they were, so I cancelled the appointment.
Quite fittingly, on her last visit to Dad's before he told me to cancel the meeting, she, for the SECOND TIME, left her key to Dad's front door in the lock in yet another exhibition of Flozberk sloppy incompetence.
A Carefully Devised Strategy
Over the the next 4 months, both sides alternated in taking care of Dad and Tasha. Most of the time, I didn't mention The Flozberks, but when I did, I did not fuck around. My mantra in such moments was this:
TWO WORDS, Boss: 1) Mutchie's 2) Dog.
When people show you what they are, believe them!
Poor Skateboard was part of a 4 pronged attack on The Flozberks' grip on poor Dad in a carefully executed campaign:
1. Reminders of Skateboard (and other Flozberk stumbles from a massive list over the decades) whenever the Flozzies would fall short, which was often.
2. An emphasis on taking exceptional care of Tasha, who the Flozberks pretty much let rot while they had their largest share of responsibility for my parents' household's care.
3. An emphasis on cooking him his favorite foods, carefully adjusted to groove with his Big Pharma-trashed palate, and spending quality time breaking bread with him as the Flozdolts fell woefully short on both counts.
4. An emphasis on making him acutely aware of his sacred responsibility to make sound decisions to ensure I, his only child, would be treated fairly after so many years of abuse and disregard of both of us by various Flozzers.
Of course, #2 and 3 would have been standard practice, no matter what else was afoot.
That approach formed a solid foundation, but what ultimately swung him back to the light was a breathtakingly arrogant, ham-fisted series of daft missteps by The Flozcocks in attempting to further marginalize me and Lisa that pissed Dad off something terminal and spurred him to contact me requesting that we meet with an attorney.
Auto-Idiotic Asphyxiation
Many of those missteps are detailed on this site, especially in the piece detailing the last weeks of Dad's life, but it strongly appears that the last straw came the weekend before Xmas when The Flozjinks bumped us from our planned Saturday with Dad and seem to have engaged in behavior that really got his goat.
He was initially reluctant to tell me what happened then, perhaps fearing a massive escalation of our already nasty schism, and I didn't press him on it. Whatever it was, though, was quite significant.
Bottom line is that they hung themselves with their own damn rope.
Surprise!
It's quite likely that I have that information right here on my desk, though!
After Dad and I made the video in the spring of 2018 that certainly shook up FlozWorld, I asked him if I could employ some devices to record all conversations that took place in his bedroom, the den, kitchen, and back patio. He was uncomfortable with that and I didn't pressure him.
Still, I bought the devices, just in case.
After the Neila's Silly Ass incident on December 15, I again raised the issue with Dad and this time he consented, with a video made of that consent.
That night, I installed the devices in, and only in the four places listed above. After he shuffled off his mortal coil just under a month later, I recovered the devices on a date I'll just keep to myself for now and transferred the 600 gigabytes of audio to a portable hard drive.
Unfortunately, that hard drive suffered a catastrophic failure before I could back it up. No, the data is not lost forever, but recovering it is far beyond my tech prowess and would cost thousands of dollars. The lessons learned are:
1. Always back up important data promptly.
2. Never handle a hard drive while it is spinning and writing.
Should I ever want the data, I'll have it recovered, but, frankly, the notion of listening to Neila's nails-on-chalkboard voice and The Flozzwads manipulating poor Dad among countless hours of their likely-inane jabbering is pretty dang far down my list of things I want to fight to stomach.
Triumph
The important part of all this is, in the end, Dad rejected those sleazy crackpots and wholeheartedly affirmed us.
For poor, poor Skateboard's role in making that possible, we pretty much consider that dog a war hero in these parts.
RIP, Skateboard. You took a big one for the team.