The Origin of The Dude

Anyone who has subjected themselves to the uniquely blissful, trailer park zen experience of watching The Big Lebowski knows that it's one of the F-bombingest movies of all time. Ostensibly, our golden retriever pup came by the name The Dude to pay homage to Jeff Bridges' turn as The Dude in the cult classic, and it never gets old to turn the phrase "The Dude abides" after our Dude performs rare acts of obedience (it turns out that Marley might've been a more apt monicker so far as film allusions go). When he's not abiding, which is most of the time, our Dude is dislocating the shoulders of anyone who dares venture on a walk with him, humping the neighbor's dog (who is male, yet oddly doesn't object), or getting one of us up every 30 minutes to take him out for an explosive diarrhea session after he's ingested yet another foreign object. Instead of "Shut the fuck up, Donny," it's "Quit fuckin' shitting, Dude," at four in the morning.

One should never let reality get in the way of a good story, but in reality The Dude's name has much simpler origins. We purchased the pup as a Christmas gift for my father in law, who had recently laid to rest his golden oldie, Chester (the Molester), who had in fact made his mark like an old male dog before becoming an old male dog and succumbing to the vet's needle. Things got really ugly towards the end, and it had to be done. We decided to just call the new model Dude, as not to get too attached, while we sheltered him until Christmas. It seemed like such a thoughtful gesture to replace the fallen golden with The Golden Dude, as my father in law has taken to calling him. Unfortunately, my mother in law had other ideas. Adamant about not having another golden, she went out--with full knowledge of the gift we had in store for her husband--and got a dog from the animal shelter a few days before Christmas. We gave them The Dude anyway, but two pups proved to be too much, and a few weeks later our thoughtful gesture was re-gifted. And the dog we didn't want to get too attached to has been sitting at my feet ever since.

Much to my better half's chagrin, I stubbornly clung to the name, The Dude, until it stuck as his official name. The only problem is that I call everybody dude, and this has created a few instances of confusion for the other boisterous boy that, like the dog, is rarely anywhere but attached to my hip. "Dude, No!" are common words around these parts. Sometimes a surprised Silas will get a hurt and confused look and ask, "Do you mean dude me no or Dude dog no?" Most of the time it could probably go for either of them, kind of a blanket condemnation of all preschooler and puppy bad choices, but Silas is very relieved on the occasions when it turns out that he is in the clear.

I love how the boy says dude, drawing out the ooooh in his angelic drawl. Hearing him say it got me to thinking. Maybe The Dude's name does have deeper origins; dude was in fact the very first word the boy ever uttered. Long before my dog walking days, I'd strap the boy in the backpack carrier and traipse around the neighborhood giving him language lessons. Well, I suppose it was a lesson if you consider my repeating "Daddy" over and over again in hopes that it would become his first word to be a lesson. He had the "D" down, but the stuttering "D-d-d-d-duh" sounds were soon followed by an ooh instead of an ah. Add another "D" and you've got "duh-oooo-duh."

"No, Da-a-a-a-a-a-d," I'd coax.

"Duh-oooo-duh," he'd reply.

"Howabout Da-da," I said.

"Duh-oooo-duh," he insisted.

Sigh.

Defeated, I decided to nurture the boy's new gift of language as best I could. The cows in the pasture up the road must have thought it strange to hear me and Silas inflecting the seemingly endless varieties of "dude," like in the beer commercials, as we took our evening strolls. Soon we were delighting in similar sounding words like doo-doo and dookie. It's much nicer to say than it is to scrape off his bottom during a diaper change. "Dude! Did you go doo-doo?"

Since then we've had many adventures (and misadventures) with words, like the time when--in front of the babysitter, no less--two-year-old Silas drove his ride-on toy into the wall at breakneck speed, nearly tumbled over the handle bars, and shouted, "FUCK!" Maybe he wasn't all the way asleep yet that time when I watched The Big Lebowski while he snuggled me in bed. Dude, everything comes full circle.