Dim Sum Driver

Every time Albert has stayed with us, and then leaves, my car ends up smelling like a mixture of reheated Chinese food and cigarette smoke, all mixed together like the end result of some sort of conflagration at a dim sum restaurant. Of course this may be partly because of actual bits of food that have hidden under the seats or in the glove compartment. To go out and sit in the driver's seat for the first time after a week's absence comes with a curious sort of mental and olfactory mnemonic, bringing to life some past experience of being barely conscious, in a drunken haze, slumped in a booth seat at Hung Far Low, prostitutes taking a break nearby, cooks playing poker with a greasy deck of cards, feeling almost yet never quite sick enough to puke.

Ya know?

But I don't mean to complain, just to describe. Albert is tops in my book, a prince among men. Everyone leaves their mark in one way or another. His simply has a Chinese flavor.

Besides that, Smokey absolutely loves Albert--so much so that he longs also to be a truck driver, or at least a faithful copilot. I have no doubt that this particular dog would be faithless to his master in the wink of an eye, preferring the open road and far foreign fields to the same old yard and the same old squirrels and the same old annoying Chihuahua companion.

I don't begrudge him this affection, and in fact admit that he and Albert make a perfect pair. Sometimes we just end up with the wrong partner, victims of an unfair, inequitable turn of fate. It's life, and as such there is nothing to be done but to make the best of ones lot.