After a bunch of beers, Alex, JC, and I decided that it was time to steal some lawn decorations. I had recently seen some concrete wolves that would make a good addition to our living room; so, we went in search of them.
We found way more than wolves at that abode. The house was across the street from a full service Citgo station. It had eight foot tall evergreens fencing in the garden of statues. It was like the ice Queen’s statue garden from Narnia. Luckily the wolves looked light enough to swipe. We took two. Unfortunately we weren’t done yet.
Further down that country road was a quaint house with a statue of a german shephard. This statue was much bigger than the wolf statues but we figured that the three of us could handle it. Unlike the hollow wolves, this statue was solid concrete, with a solid concrete base, and was probably about four and a half feet tall. I’m not great with guessing weight, but i’d wager that that dog was at least 300 lbs. It was obviously not meant to be moved without the help of a jack or dolly of some sort. (And even when I was able to use a dolly later on, it bent the dolly.)
If we hadn’t been intoxicated we would have thought better of our plan after we trying the initial lift. But we did no further thinking. We were able to lift it enough to drag the a corner of the base across the lawn. While lifting I felt like my belt had somehow stabbed into the side of my belly, According to my doctor I most likely weakened a spot in my abdomen and will maybe have a hernia there some day. But we managed to get it into the trunk of JC’s car and head back to the homestead.
Once there, Derrick and somebody else helped us get it up the stairs. It was not as bad carrying it when there were five people–but the same could be said for a piano. The next day I started to feel pretty bad about what we did. Especially because the dog had a hand print, signature, and (I think) the dog’s name on the bottom (we didn’t see that till later). So, it was likely made special for the owner, by someone they knew, in remembrance of a family dog that had died. That really made me feel like a douche. I knew I had a bad habit of stealing weird things when I was drunk. The sign from a chiropractic center, lawn chairs and paintings of fish from a retirement home, a Hardee’s sign. They all tended to be large and mostly useless items. I don’t drink anymore by the way and that’s a good thing for everybody.
Anyhow, I started feeling pretty bad about the whole thing. But there was no way I was going to be able to return it myself. I had to convince my roommates to help me. I was able to recruit my good friend and drummer of the band I was in to help me return the wolves. Scott was a good guy and understood that I did stupid things when I was drunk. Together we got those wolves back where they belong. But they obviously weren’t a personal as the dog. That’s the one I really felt bad about taking. And Scott and I were not going to be able to move that without at least 2 more people.
For the next couple nights my roommates were busy or just weren’t up to the arduous task. Then one night they got some beers and watched “The Warriors”. It’s a classic gang film. This got them pretty pumped about, well nothing really, and by the time I got home they had spray painted warriors graffiti on 2 of our doors and on the german shepherd. They put mardi gras beads around the dog’s neck as well.
The dog wasn’t a solid color statue like the wolves were. It had been painted with great detail and the hairs were carved into the concrete as well. Basically, I couldn’t imagine a way to get that red paint out or paint over it well enough. And that is when my last glimmer of hope to return the world’s heaviest german shepherd died.
When we moved out of the house the roommates did help move the dog, but only to the attic. It was only 5 stairs to get there and we just slid it as far as we could to the back and just left it there. Most likely it would eventually fall through the ceiling on a humid day and kill a family. But that’s not the end of the story.