i'm a pixel here, myself

As I was driving apetslife to the airport (after a dinner of Indian food -- the one thing Pet claimed she'd be able to taste, given that she got the Con Plague), my parents called; I ignored it because I didn't want to talk to them with the whole mess of the airport to navigate, so I dropped Pet off, got back on 101, and called them back. Mom answered and, rather quietly, told me that they'd had to put the dog to sleep.

We've had him since I was 12 or 13 (I don't remember, exactly), a huge yellow lab with a tongue the size of my hand and seemingly boundless energy. We got him as a very young puppy, just weaned, and had the "fun" of attempting to housebreak him -- which didn't work all that well because he peed and crapped in the house right up to the end. Many a morning before high school was spent with a bucket of soapy water, attempting to scrub a pee stain out of the carpet (and failing). But I just can't imagine my parents' house without him. I was fine, I thought, until Mom started getting choked up, and then I kind of lost it -- there were tears in my eyes and I was trying desperately to hold them back because I was doing 70 on 101 and I needed to be able to see -- half my life, we've had that dog. When my grandparents visited and took my bedroom, he used to sleep on the fold-out sofa in the basement with me, and I'd wake up to tongue on my face and the whine that meant he had to go out. We pushed and prodded him into behaving for family photos (not at studios, just in our living room), so I'll always have something to remember him by, but.

I'm gonna miss you, Luke.