G-O-D IS MY CO-PILOT

         "Dog is God spelled backwards" the young woman said to me as I walked Farfel on Parkview Road in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania five years ago. Her eyes were aglow with the certainty of a pilgrim on her way to the Holy City of Q'um.

         "Cat is tac backwards, and lion, noil" I should have said, but my life is one of thinking of things I should have said, only to write them five years later. Better yet, the correct reply would be 'tiger is regit backwards".

         "Regit", if I remember my Latin, means rule, in the third person, such as he, she or it rules, and surely my dog does rule: home and hearth, and the station wagon for that matter.

         No stranger, and few friends, pass our door without bringing on sustained barking, tail wagging and crotch sniffing. Few get near her when she is enthroned in the back seat of the car.

         The back seat itself has suffered her ravages. Seeing another dog out the window she pounds her feet into the seat and barks furiously, lowering her head with each bark.

         In late 1997 a human being was actually able to sit in the back of the car. Of course, the dog was not there. Now the seat is beyond use. Seams are ripped, foam comes out and on many days the cloth that remains is soaking wet from her huge feet. The throw which sometimes covers this disaster area is often wet and dirty and requires washing. There is a certain odor of dog and mildew that keeps all but the healthy and hearty from entering the car.

         Many cars have tinted glass on their windows; this car's back windows have filmy, scummy glass from the dog slobber which runs down them and hardens. I know my car anywhere. It is the green Legacy wagon without luggage racks and with gray windows in back.

         With the seat gone to hell, and the windows not providing much view, she has taken to standing with her front feet on the console between the front seats and and her head near the rear view mirror. The console is slippery
from the basic material, and her drool adds to this. Any little turn causes her to lurch in either direction, but like a trooper, she picks herself up and is back in place again, serving as my navigator and co-pilot.

         Now she sprays the windshield and the rear view mirror when she barks. I can throw my right arm out horizontally and press against her chest and she moves off so I can see out the mirror, but the view through polka dots of spittle is not very good. The windshield is another matter. As night falls, or as sun
light hits it, these fantastic dots pop into the picture and suggest I have entered another world.

         Other times spray hits me in the face, or on either side of my glasses, and there is a kind of Farfel's Law: The Larger The Truck I Am Trying To Pass, The More Likely She Is To Blind Me With Saliva. Actually the ones that hit me come when she turns her head to the side. This happens when something interesting is passing and her head and body follow the passing object to the back windows for a better view.

         Ah, but what a navigator! She warns me of anything approaching, especially if it is red, a UPS truck or if it has wheels or feet. Toll
booths also present great opportunities for barking: as we approach, at the attendants, and as we leave. This winter I bought a pass which lets me sail through these booths without stopping, and I am not sure she has forgiven
me. To placate her, I often stop and lower the window so she can get off a full throated bark. To show her appreciation, she often decides what I need most is a sloppy kiss and face cleaning with her tongue.

         So she is my constant companion. Every time I think that I shall lay down the law to her, someone cuts me off on the road, or stands in the ten package line with twenty packages, or decides I need to be called on the
phone for a fabulous offer from my credit card company, and I remember the silly saying about the more I know people, the more I like my g-o-d. I am spelling it backwards so she doesn't understand it. Don't want her to get a swollen head.