It Looked Different on the Model - Laurie Notaro [82]
“After she barks, it transmits to the walkie-talkie, and the translation pops up on that screen,” I informed him. “Does it work?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “She hasn’t barked all day. Everyone in the neighborhood and their dog has walked by our house today, but a little miss I know needed beauty sleep.”
“So this expensive, useless thing doesn’t work,” my husband asserted. “So much for the Animal Emotion Analysis System.”
“I didn’t say that!” I cried, and snatched the walkie-talkie out of his undeserving hands. “She just hasn’t been pulling her emotional end of the deal.”
My husband went up to Maeby, who was still draped over the end of the couch, looking at us.
Quietly.
“Maeby, bark,” my husband suggested.
She looked at him and then looked away, as if she was bored.
“Show her,” I proposed. “Bark at her. Maybe that will encourage her.”
“Ruff!” my husband said.
My dog was clearly insulted.
“Get closer to her, show her what you mean,” I instructed.
My husband moved closer to Mae, leaned down by her little doggy head, and said, “Ruff!”
My dog responded by getting off the couch and moving in front of the fireplace.
My husband threw up his hands. I shrugged. And then I noticed that on the little screen of the walkie-talkie, something was being translated.
“You have a sad face,” I informed him as I relayed what I saw on the screen. “The little dog in you said, ‘I can’t figure you out!’ ”
“Really?” my husband said, coming at me with his hand out. “It translated my bark?”
“Oh, oh,” I said, pulling my arm away. “Now you’re suddenly interested in my useless, expensive gadget.”
“Come on,” my husband said, reaching for it. “I wanna see.”
“Here,” I said, relenting and handing it over. I walked over to Maeby and scratched her ears, then kissed her little doggy head. “Woooof!”
“Wait … wait.…” my husband said, as if he was receiving signals from the International Space Station. “Oh, really? Is that what you think? It says, ‘We’re in trouble now!’ And you have a smiley face.”
“Ha-ha!!” I chortled. “You got that right!”
Mae got up and went back to the couch, where my husband bent down and barked rather loudly into her collar.
“ ‘Where’s my bone?’ This is off. Maybe you have to calibrate it. I have no desire for a bone. And I’m still sad!” he read, as Mae climbed down off the couch again and tried to leave the room. “Maeby, stay! Maeby, stay! Oh, never mind.”
He followed her down the hall and returned in a minute with Mae’s collar in his hand. I have no idea where the dog went.
“Woo-woo-woooo!” he howled to the collar, and then laughed when he looked at the translator.
“What? Let me see,” I said, reaching for the walkie-talkie, which had an angry face that pronounced, “Something’s bothering me!”
“You are a moody pooch,” I mocked, and grabbed the collar from him, then took a deep breath and released a “Wooooooooooooooo!” that would rival the call of any pack.
“Careful who you mess with!” the translator warned my husband.
Unfazed, he snatched the collar back and released a fierce bay of his own, as in “Wooo-hooo-hooooooo!”
“Please be nice to me,” the translator said, and gave a frowny face.
“Hello, Omega!” I laughed when I read it. “Awwwww! Are the other doggies picking on you?”
“I am not the omega!” he insisted. “That is not what my call meant. My call was bold.”
“Translator doesn’t think so,” I volleyed.
“It’s wrong,” he insisted. “That was definitely an alpha call. I did an alpha call!”
“Well,” I offered. “Maybe you were an alpha barking in Chinese.”
“A-wooooooo!” my husband barked into the collar.
“And the survey says … ‘Please be nice to me.’ Again,” I said, with an odd look. “You are one pathetic, insecure dog, my friend.”
“I don’t believe you,” my husband said, pulling the translator from my hand to read for himself. “It may have been the call of a lone wolf, but it was not pathetic. And there you go. It was a wolf call, that’s why. It was clearly wolf. This translates Dog. Not Wolf. Apparently it’s not trans-species.”
He then emitted a rather ferocious bark, during which I was surprised that spittle