The Nrrdling (Aryn)

This is a favorite memory of reading Stephen King novels, mostly because it usually gets a chuckle out of people, even non-readers.  

I'd been reading King for a couple of years when I picked up Cujo, though at the time he was the only horror writer I'd ever read.  I had recently read Firestarter, but was a few years away from reading Thinner.  Keep in mind this was probably middle school (I was 11 or so).  

Anyway, as had become my habit I was staying awake long after my parents had gone to bed reading.  I was getting towards the end of the novel and I just couldn't put it down.  I had to know how it ended.  However, I was finding the book too dark to finish in my bedroom, so I had migrated to the living room and had turned on all the lights in my house on the way there.  At one point I looked up and found my dog watching me curiously, I wasn't usually up so late.  I went back to reading.  A few minutes later, I glanced up and my dog was still watching me.  It was beginning to bother me.

I finished reading Cujo, with my dog locked in a bathroom

because he looked at me funny.

For full impact of that statement, meet my dog, Trooper.

Click.  Click.

This is Trooper, today:

He is a 16 year old Norfolk Terrier.  He has no teeth, can't see, hear, and has pretty miserable arthritis.  Granted, when I was in middle school he was a much younger dog, but he's not the most intimidating of creatures.  

Now let me reiterate:

I finished reading Cujo, with my dog locked in a bathroom.