My dad is a great guy, but he's also a bit of a goofball at the same time. He's always doing silly things, but he never means any harm. There is this faithful day, he decided to drive our dogs from Lagos to Abuja without leashes. Let me tell you, it was a muddy mess. My mom had warned him not to do it, but he didn't listen. He thought he knew better. Well, he was wrong.
At a rest stop along the journey, my dad made the somewhat bad decision to liberate our dogs from the confines of the car without the safety of leashes. The boxer, to our relief, obediently remained close by, but the lab had other plans. She darted off into the unknown, triggering my dad's panicked search for her, anxiety creeping in with every passing second.
Finally, he found the lab rolling around in a massive mud puddle. She was covered in mud from the tip of her nose to the tip of her tail. She looked like a chocolate Labrador had been rolled in a mud puddle, then rolled in another mud puddle, and then rolled in another mud puddle, just for good measure.
My dad tried to coax her out of the puddle, but she refused. She was having too much fun, you could see it in her eyes. My dad lost his footing & ended up slipping into the mud and falling on top of the lab. The boxer showing protective instincts jumped on both of them with the force of a hippopotamus charging at a poacher. All three of them were now caked in mud, from head to toe.
My dad managed to get the dogs back to the car, but he knew he couldn't continue driving with them in that condition. He had to find a hotel to clean them up.He checked into a hotel in Lokoja, and the staff was shocked to see him and the dogs covered in mud. My dad explained the situation, and the clerk laughed and handed him a key.
My dad decided to bathe the lab first. The lab hated baths, and she spent the entire time howling like a crazed wolf. The boxer, protective of her sister, thought my dad was hurting the lab and bit him on the backside, though mercifully without drawing blood.
My dad started yelling at both dogs, and they began barking and running around the room, knocking over furniture and leaving mud footprints all over the carpet. The lab managed to escape from the room by jumping out the window.
My dad chased the lab around the hotel parking lot until he finally caught her. She was now even muddier than before. He brought her back to the room and locked the door. Then, my dad started cleaning up the mess in the room. He mopped the floor, wiped down the walls, and put all the furniture back in place. He even managed to get all the mud out of the lab's fur.
When he was finished, my dad collapsed on the bed, exhausted. He looked up at the ceiling and saw that there were a few brown spots on the paint. The mud must have dripped through the ceiling from the room above. My dad sighed. He knew he was in trouble.
A call came from hotel management, asking if everything was alright. Several neighboring guests had complained about the noise and the mud dripping through the ceiling. My dad apologized and miraculously avoided eviction, but he ended up having to pay for the damages to the room, which were considerable.
Upon hearing this crazy and funny tale, my mom found herself laughing so hysterically that it induced a panic attack. I, for my part, have never let my dad forget this misadventure. But he did, in a rare moment of humility, admit that he should have heeded my mom's advice and that, on this occasion, she was undeniably right.
My dad's muddy misadventure is now a family legend. We still tell the story at parties and family gatherings, and it always gets a good laugh. My dad is a good sport about it, and he even tells the story himself from time to time.
I think the reason we love this story so much is because it's so relatable.
Everyone has had a time when they've tried to do something nice and it's all gone horribly wrong. But that's life, right? It's the mistakes we make that make us who we are. And my dad? He's a little bit goofier, a little bit muddier, and a lot more loved
