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John BarlowGO EAT DOGA dog had been knocked down by a car and the dog died. Now, that is sad, and if you are the owner of the animal it must be heart breaking. Also, you have to get rid of the body yourself, so it’s doubly painful. However sad these things are, though, they happen, and we accept them as an unfortunate consequence of modern living. ...His dog had just died, for Christ's sake... So, the dog in this case dies, and the owner must dispose of the body. He’s there in the street. Some people hover nearby, giving moral support, and one man gets a sack of some sort from the boot of his car (the driver of the car that killed the dog did not stop). The poor owner bags the dog up and carries it across to the dustbins, assisted by the second man.In the Spanish city in which this happened, each street has several small dumpster-type dustbins for all domestic rubbish, which are emptied every night. There is also a smaller, green bin for organic waste. In theory you are supposed to bring down the rubbish in the evening, so the bins don’t stink all day long. Anyway, they get to the bins, and they put the dead dog in the green bin. Remember, this guy’s heart is probably about to split into two at this moment.  What happens next is that a woman who happens to have seen all this shouts at him: "Not in the organic!" Not in the organic? I mean, his dog has just died, for Christ’s sake, and she scolds him for classifying his beloved pet as organic matter. There’s more. She goes on to justify her seemingly absurd remark by saying, ‘that’s where I put my food!’ and she shudders, as if the presence of a dead dog compromises the human food chain in some way. After a little moment of confused emotion, the bereaved man turns to her and says, "Go eat dog, ****!" ¡Cómete perro, coño! He storms off, tearful. Even when you consider that the word coño is not quite so offensive in Spanish as its English equivalent, that is still a very strange thing to say. The man’s riposte was, in fact, almost as strange as the woman’s complaint. And as for the woman herself, what was she thinking, and why was she saying it out loud? Go eat dog indeed.  John Barlow is the author of Intoxicated: A Novel of Money, Madness, and the Invention of the World's Favorite Soft Drink. He lives in Spain."It's an outline of my dog Nina," says photographer Quinn Allen "She spends most of her time laying in that spot - so much so, that while I traced her, she did not budge. I even have several photos days later of her laying exactly on top of the outline. Strange creature of habit."
7:31 PM - 16/5/2006 - post comment
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