"So you want me to help you get this suitcase out of the closet?"
"Arf!"
I'm in Jon's bedroom, standing on a chair, trying to get one of his suitcases out of the top shelf of the closet. It wouldn't be so bad if Jon didn't have so many suitcases crammed onto the shelf. I tried pulling one out earlier and it's stuck. They're all stuck because there's not enough room for them all. So, I've called Garfield over to help me.
Together, we tug, and struggle, and finally pull out a suitcase for me. Or two. Or three. Or eleven. Ooh. I hope that doesn't bruise in the morning.
After putting the other ten suitcases that fell off back on the shelf, I now am left with one suitcase, which is still more than enough for all my belongings. I put in my dog dish, some dingleballs, some squeaky bones, dog treats, some clothes (for when I do need clothes), my Super Odie costume, my passport, my dog bed, and a drawing pad and colored pencils for the flight to Australia. I also took about $2,000 dollars from Jon's wallet, you know, to pay for my ticket. I'm sure he won't mind. I also pack a picture of Jon and Garfield. I don't know why, because it's not like I'm gonna miss them.
"So, anyway, Odie, what are you packing for?" inquires Garfield.
I don't know much about Australia, so I hope my imitation of a kangaroo will suffice. Boing! Boing!
"Australia?" Garfield scratches his head. "Why on earth are you going there?" I run off and grab a picture of Lyman off the fireplace mantle, from when he was still around. Garfield looks at it and smiles. "Oh, you want to pay old Lyman a visit, don't you?" I nod eagerly. "But, Odie, don't you know how far that is from here?!"
He leaves and returns with a globe. First, he points to wherever it is we live. "Okay, we're here, right? And Australia is all the way across the ocean." He draws an imaginary line with his finger to a large island near the bottom of the globe, which I guess is Australia. "You'll have to fly to get there, Odie. How'll you afford that?"
I unzip my suitcase to show him my money. Garfield takes it from me and counts it. "Well, I guess that'll be enough for one ticket. But how will you pay for the ticket home?"
See, that's the part he doesn't know about. There is no ticket home because Australia is going to be my new home.
"Well, maybe I'm wrong about the money. See ya, Odie. I'm gonna go watch TV." He saunters back into the living room.
I put the money back into the suitcase and re-zip it. I'm about to tell Jon goodbye, but then I realize I have no idea where the airport is. Silly me. Besides, my ankle still hurts a bit and I don't want to walk more than I have to. I'll just have to hitchhike, I guess.
Don't hitchhikers write where they want to go on cardboard? Hmm. I can't write. I don't know how. No one ever taught me! I've seen Garfield write before, so I know that he knows how— I'll see if he can be of assistance again. Oh, Garfield!
"Ruff! Ruff!"
"Oh, what is it now, Odie?" says Garfield, walking into the bedroom again. He looks sort of annoyed. "Can't you see I'm trying to watch the season premiere of Name That Fish?"
I tear one of the flaps off a white cardboard box and find a red Sharpie. Garfield looks perplexed when I hand them to him. "What are these for, Odie?" the cat asks. I take the cardboard from him and mime thumbing down a car. He seems to understand immediately. "Oh, you want to hitchhike? But where? You can't hitchhike to Australia, dummy!"
I move my paw in the air like it's an airplane taking off and make a swooshing sound. "Oh, you want to hitch a ride to the airport and you want me to help you write a sign! I get it now!" In record time, he writes "NEED RIDE TO AIRPORT" on the cardboard in some of the neatest handwriting I've ever seen. "Okay, looks like you're all set!" he says, before giving me a big hug. "Have fun on your trip, Odie. Goodbye!" With that, he leaves the room again.
I like how nice Garfield is being to me. It reminds me of how he was in the old days. Maybe I should unpack and stay here.
Nah!
Next, I go and find Jon. He's in his cartooning studio, drawing something at his easel. I "yip" to get his attention.
"Oh, hi, Odie!" he greets me cheerfully. "Do you want to see what I've been working on?"
I shake my head politely and squeeze him tightly. I see Jon's getting weirded out by it. I'm not usually a hugger. "Um, okay? I love you too, Odie." He pats me on the head and I lick his face. Then I walk out of the room and wave goodbye.
"Uh... bye, Odie!" he chuckles, waving back at me. "Hmm..."
I stand in the doorway for a second, just to get one last look at him. A little smile grows on my face as I hop away. I can't wait to see Lyman again.
Wheeling my suitcase behind me, I'm about to leave when Garfield leaps in front of me, screaming "BON VOYAGE!" at the top of his voice and throwing confetti, nearly startling me to death. "Ha! Did I scare you, fraidy dog? You jumped a mile and went 'BYOOWW!'" I can't help but giggle. It was kind of funny.
"Well, anyway, I hope you have a great time visiting Lyman and have a safe journey there and back. It's gonna be quiet here without you. I won't have anyone to kick off the table, or blame when I get in trouble, or use as a trampoline..." He starts to sniffle and his eyes get wet, but he hangs his head to try and hide it from me. "...sorry, I'm getting all misty..."
We embrace for a few seconds, but for some reason it makes me feel an odd lumpy sensation in my throat, like when I get fed bread crusts and don't chew them enough. I'm gonna miss this pl—oh, no! I think I'm starting to get all sentimental! I'd better leave right now before it's too late and I can't go through with it. Pulling away, I take my suitcase and sign and run outside, slamming the door behind me.
I hear Garfield yell "So long, Odie!" through the door.
As I stop at the end of the driveway, I wonder why Garfield was so nice to me today. I chalk it up to him being happy that I'm leaving. Yeah, sounds about right. Anyway, I feel like our farewell was somewhat bittersweet. Sure, I'll be finally rid of the abuse, stress, repression, and low-quality "dohg kibl", but now I'm stuck with all these memories of us before he turned mean, from a time when I didn't really care about how Garfield treated me because he was nice overall and I enjoyed playing with him. He wasn't a jerk like he is now.
Whatever, that's all in the past now. I'm ready to wipe the slate clean, turn to a new chapter, you know, start my life over from scratch.
I set my suitcase down and hold up my sign. I begin to wonder how I'm supposed to thumb down a car with no thumbs, but remember I'm a cartoon character, so I must have thumbs. Yay!
Many, many cars pass by. But I wait patiently, and after fifteen or twenty minutes, one does stop. I've chased a lot of cars in my lifetime, and just by the smell of it, if I'm not mistaken, I believe this is a 1991 Cadillac Sedan de Ville.
"Come on in!" calls the driver. I open the door and climb in onto the soft leather seat, laying my suitcase in the floorboard.
The driver is a ginger man who looks to be around his early twenties with a puffy vermillion afro and thick-rimmed trapezoidal glasses. They aren't rounded around the edges. Just straight lines. I think they look cool that way. He's wearing a Colts T-shirt. Just to be on the safe side, I think I'd better get a whiff of his hand. *sniff sniff sniff* Yeah, he seems okay. I lick his hand slightly to show my approval.
"So, I see you're headed for the airport?" he says to me as I buckle up.
"Arf!" I answer.
"That's not too far out of my way. My name's Jason. What's yours? Oh, yeah, you can't tell me your name, you're a dog!" We share a laugh before Jason observes something. "Wait a minute, you look like that yellow dog from the funny pages. I think your name's Oggy, right? Does Gerald live in that house too?"
I shake my head.
"You're not Oggy from the Gerald comic? You look a lot like the dog Gerald always pushes off the china cabinet."
"Mmm-mmm." I shake my head again. Come to think of it, I do sort of bear a resemblance to Oggy. I guess I just never made the connection until now.
"Then what is your name?" Jason wonders. I figure this is the perfect time to unzip my suitcase again and pull out my passport. "Rarf!" I bark as I hand it to him. He opens it up and examines it until he finds what he wants. "Oh, your name is Odie! That's a nice name."
"Ruff! *pant pant*" I agree.
"Your passport picture is gnarly, man!" exclaims Jason. The picture is of me clad in a fedora, business suit and tie, from when Jon took us to the beach and Garfield and I needed to pose as humans in order to get passports, so we wouldn't have to ride in the luggage compartment. The outfit looked silly at first, but now I think it looks rather dashing on me. He hands me my passport back and I place it back into my suitcase.
"So, you ready?" says Jason.
I give him the thumbs up. Jason puts it in drive and we start off for the airport. As we leave, I turn to look back at my old house for the last time, but can't help but see flashing colored lights in the windows. My sensitive canine ears also pick up the very faint sound of a bass dropping. Is Garfield throwing a big dance party for himself in there, now that I'm gone? Hmm. The thought of Garfield celebrating my departure makes me question the legitimacy of the little goodbye speech Garfield made before I left.
In a weird way, I kinda feel sorry for him. He still thinks my trip to Australia is only temporary. But I quickly forget about him when I see the arm of some shades sticking out of the glove compartment. I open it, pull them out, and put them on. Now I can hitchhike in style, baby!
Since having a conversation is pointless because I'm a dog and can only do "yes" or "no" questions, I turn the radio on and hear the end of a weather report before a radio jingle plays: "Ninety-six-point foooooour! *very, very, very long drum solo* WUHG!" It's not the worst jingle I've ever heard, but the vocals sounded a bit flat and the 26-second drum solo (yeah, I counted) was kind of stupid.
After that, it starts blasting an old Chubby Checker ditty. Jason literally squeals. "I love Chubby Checker! I listen to him all the time in the car!" I can't wrap my head around why someone would listen to Chubby in the car, because his music makes you want to get up and boogie—you can't really do the twist while you're sitting inside a car, being strapped in by a seatbelt. Instead of getting tangled up in my seatbelt attempting to dance the twist in the car, I'd rather just lie back with my arms behind my head and watch the clouds through the sunroof.
By the way, these seat controls are amazing. You can move your seat up, down, left, right, forward, and back! Is that not sweet?After playing with the controls for a bit, I figure out how to make the back of my seat recline.
"It's a nice car, isn't it? It used to be my dad's. Then he gave it to me and bought another one," Jason tells me. "It's so reliable and gets me wherever I need to go. It's got almost 300,000 miles on it, but it still runs like new."
He continues to talk about his car. My nose was right earlier; it is a '91 model. But then he just keeps going and going. I raise my sunglasses and narrow my eyes at him, but he doesn't seem to get the hint.
As we get on the interstate, he starts talking about how at one point, he actually fell in love with the car and began a relationship with it, and how the car "liked" it when he kissed its wheel in one specific spot. Absolutely repulsive. Not wanting to lose my lunch, I decide to finally intervene and put my paw over his mouth.
He finally turns to look at me for a second. I grab my throat and stick out my tongue while making a gagging noise, as if to tell him, "Dude. No. That's freakin' gross."
"Oh, I'm sorry," he apologizes in an understanding tone, turning his eyes back to the road. "I guess that was pretty disgusting." Tell me about it—why isn't brain bleach a thing yet? "I'll be quiet, okay?"
I look back up at the clouds through the sunroof and try to forget about the story Jason was telling me. It's difficult, but I succeed in erasing it completely from my mind, at least for the time being.
I like clouds. They can turn into all sorts of different shapes if the wind is right. There's a bone. And over to the left of it is a turtle. And waaaaaay over to the right, almost outside of my view from the sunroof, I make out what looks somewhat like a pan of lasagna. Oh, Garfield and his lasagna. He never shared any of it with me, but I'm sure Lyman will make me some when I get to Australia.
The thought of finally getting to taste lasagna makes me so happy that my eyelids start to feel heavy behind my shades. Since I was up so early this morning preparing to leave for Australia, I don't bother fighting the drowsiness and close my eyes all the way, swiftly falling into a blissful slumber. Zzzzzzzzzz...