Does this look like the face of an Evil Pooping Monster? How could such a villain appear so innocent and cuddly? Do not be fooled. He is Destroyer of Rugs and Ruiner of Air Quality and he is coming for your couch cushions. Hold up, lemme do my brief daily dose of fiction before we get to my odorous reality.
He pulled up to the address she gave him and asked wryly, “Tupperware party?” Mags rolled her eyes and said, “Leave now or you’ll get me killed. Go.” Reluctantly he nodded.
***doodl-oodl-oodl…by the way, I’m going to start using this line in regular life. “Leave now or you’ll get me killed.” It lends a certain air of mystery around a person.***
My actual life, on the other hand, is decidedly unmysterious. In fact, I wish there was a little more mystery surrounding certain bodily functions. Sometimes I think I’m just a five-foot-four pooper-scooper with boobs.
Our dog JPEG’s favoritist person in the whole wide world is my ten-year-old, Ana. If dogs can suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, then he has it bad, because she is his captor, carrying him around everywhere she goes, dressing him in her American Girl doll clothes, and pushing him in a pink baby carriage. And the second he squirms away to freedom, he freaks out and runs right back to her. Must. Have. Captivity. It’s a very unhealthy, dysfunctional relationship. Ten-year-olds are sick and twisted little humans.
Her: I am Queen Ana and you are Princess JPEG and I will control you will my iron grip and you will wear the crown and you will love the crown and you are mine, mine, mine!
Dog: Yes, master. Yes! Yes!
Me: Honey, give him a break.
Dog: Shut up, interloper, you are not welcome in our realm.
JPEG’s second favorite person is Alex. He curls up in Alex’s office all day until Ana comes home, and this is his life, passed back and forth between the two. If one of them is gone for the day, and I end up with the pleasure of his furry company, he likes to poop all over the shag rug in my office, walking while pooping to really spread out the fun into as many piles as possible. He’s like a mobile, smelly Play-doh factory.
I think whoever threw him away last year like garbage was probably a woman in her thirties, because I’ve done nothing to deserve this treatment, and my office floor is certainly innocent.
JPEG and I have reached an agreeable truce, and he lets me scratch his belly, and is even almost calm around me, as long as Alex or Ana remain somewhere in the house. I like to think of myself as an ambassador for women, offering an olive branch and telling him, “We’re not all horrible animal abusers.”
So we’ve found a rhythm around here with JPEG, Alex and Ana enjoying all the doggy love, and me staying out of his way and appearing as non-threatening as possible. And then yesterday the shoot hit the fan.
Ana is at camp all week, which has JPEG going all Dawson’s Creek on everybody.
And then last night Alex drove to Atlanta for a meeting and left JPEG alone with me and Elliott and Evie. This scared THE CRAP out of JPEG. The whole crap and nothing but the crap.
At the end of his meeting, Alex received this text from me:
I thought things were going okay. We were rubbing his belly, speaking in soft voices, and heck, none of us were trying to squeeze him into a fur stole and high heels, unlike some people I know, so I thought he was loving life.
Then I heard those tell-tale hunh-hunh-hunh-hunh noises that generally precede badness of the “reappearance of dinner” variety. I realized he was about to vomit and got him outside. Walking back into the house, I sniffed the air and thought, “Huh. Why does the dining room smell like the inside of a zombie’s rectum?” I followed the smell to Formerly Known as My Sisal Rug and thought, “Now no one will want to come over for dinner.”
I got everything cleaned up, crawled into bed, and JPEG popped his little paws on the side, asking to come up with me. Aww. He does love me. Bless his heart. And then right as I lifted him into the bed I realized he had diarrhea down his backside and I spent the next few minutes scrubbing my dog’s butt with Dove “Go Fresh” Cool Moisture Body Bar. My life is so glamorous.
Later after Alex came home and I made him swear he’d never, ever leave the house again, we had this conversation:
Alex: The toothbrush you used to scrub the rug…you threw it away, right?
Me: How wasteful. I used yours and put it back. You just brushed your teeth with it.
Alex: Good one.
Me:
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