I have severe chronic
pain from twenty-year-old injuries incurred during my duties as a police
officer. The pain keeps me stuck at home most days. Today, I had lots of
company. Xyban is a German Shepherd who works as my Service Dog. Magoo is confirmed to be ½ Chihuahua, ¼ Pug,
and ¼ English Bulldog. Kenosha is my roommates' Catahoula mix. And Molly is my aunt's
13-year-old Portuguese Water Dog whose incontinence prescription isn't working.
She's leaving a wet, noxious, spreading mess on anything she relaxes on. Within
36 hours of her arrival, I had to decommission my favorite, and only, living
room chair twice by using both soap and water, and a leather cleaning kit – twice
each – because she leaked fairly prolifically on its seat – yes, twice.
The first accident was
no one's fault. It wasn't Molly's fault;
she doesn't know that she leaks. It wasn't my aunt's fault; she gave me Molly's
'pee' pills before she went away for the week. And it wasn't my fault; I didn't
have any idea that Molly's incontinence medication wasn't working.
Perhaps being abandoned
by her parents was the proverbial straw that broke Molly's bladder control. The
first chair-christening by Saint Molly was definitely no one's fault. But the
second one? That second christening that occurred after I took counter-pee-measures?
That pungent soaking that happened after I vowed to always flip the ottoman
into the vulnerable seat of my (only) chair? That time? Yeah, that one was my
fault, because of that proverb that goes "once peed-on, twice
paranoid".
My defense in the
matter of that second mess is a good one though. It happened like this:
At about 8, I sat in my
favorite (only) chair to drink coffee while the dogs ate their breakfast. It
was an espresso shot so I finished drinking just as they finished eating. We all
convened in the kitchen for 'breakfast dessert', a single small dog treat
that's a special reward for, I don't know – for being dogs, I guess.
My pain was really bad
so I wasn't looking forward to doling out dog treats. Since I keep them in the broken
dishwasher, I have to bend over to get them, which never helps the pain. It also doesn't help that it's been raining
forever, or that marijuana and wine don't help – not even together, or that doctors
are terrified of prescribing painkillers that actually kill pain. Anyway, after
completing my tour as a doggie-treat-dispenser, I didn't feel like going all
the way back into the living room because it was at least an extra 5 feet away.
I sat at the dining room table instead.
Magoo, AKA the Wireless
Warming Pad, was in my lap within seconds. He'd just assumed his favorite
cat-taught pose – the this-is-cozy-and-I-am-NOT-moving pose – when I realized I
had forgotten the ottoman-in-the-chair trick to prevent Molly from getting – or
wetting – on it. I dreaded having to scrub it a third time but I just couldn't
decide if it was worth standing up, and walking all the way over there, and
bending over, and lifting the edge of the ottoman, and trying to roll it into
the chair seat without moving my back muscles, and, geez, just the utter dread
of standing back up to trudge back to the dining room. Ugh. So I consulted my tattered
inner Zen which told me to stay in my chair and allow things to play out. Of
course, I know now that if my inner Zen had been thinking more clearly, she
would have rolled her eyes and told me to just carry Magoo over to that more
comfortable chair to simply sit in it to protect it from Molly's excretions.
Just like they say, hindsight can be, uh, really, really, annoying.
I convinced myself that
the always-attentive-and-always-obedient Molly would remember that I have
reminded her countless times to stay out of my chair, and I sighed peacefully,
just as the now-rather-quite-a-bit-senile Molly daintily climbed up into my
chair.
I said quietly, and firmly,
"Molly, get out of that chair."
When almost-deaf, slightly-blind, and rather-quite-a-bit-senile Molly
stubbornly – and adorably – refused to move out of the chair, I copied her tactics (and IQ) by also stubbornly – and childishly – refusing to move out of a chair.
I raised my voice
slightly, adding a stern tone, "NO. Molly, get out of my chair." As I began speaking, Kenosha and Xyban, AKA
The Hoyden and The Hooligan, both started moving. Reacting to my sterner tone,
super-sensitive Kenosha was noisily bolting out the dog door on my right while
on my left, Xyban, the poster boy for equanimity, was moaning deeply as he
lazily curled over, the way a bored dog would if he thought he might possibly
maybe have an itch on some vague part of his body, somewhere.
Looking right and left was
a mistake. Big mistake. HUGE. I should have been looking at the 26 lb.
Chihuahuan warming pad in my lap that was getting hot, as in
hot-under-the-collar, literally. Before I finished the last syllable of my second
command, a surly, spitting fury – an incensed Magoo – leapt off my lap, raced
across the floor, jumped onto the ottoman, and bared his teeth at Molly while
self-righteously snarling, "LISTEN to WHAT the BOSS LADY said BEFORE I
MESS UP your PRETTY FACE!" Molly
froze in a panic. She's known Magoo since he was four weeks old. She's been
aware of Magoo's "problem" for a while. Magoo has illusions of
grandeur. Magoo has a tragic need to control. Magoo thinks he's a cop. That's a
problem. A big one. Yes, huge.
And Magoo's been known
to overreact when he polices the other dogs. He did not learn that from my
example; his ½ English Bulldog father has serious anger issues. Magoo has also been
known to spark citizen unrest when he disregards the government's established rules
and regs regarding the police use-of-force continuum. But Magoo has never been
a sworn police employee of this particular household. He's more like that
creepy, socially-inept guy who got tossed out of the police academy after he
insisted that they didn't recognize his brilliance. Unfortunately, it falls to
me as the overseeing superintendent to prevent any brawls. But, unlike Magoo,
I've had training. I went to two police academies. With the reflexes of
a crippled, senior cat, I instinctively reverted to my police training,
skillfully thwarting bloody mayhem by jumping up, um, I mean, by moving
somewhat faster than a 90-year-old arthritic, and shouting with
badly-improvised enthusiasm, "Who wants a cookie?" before darting (I
love verbs! They are SO prettily objective.) into the kitchen with as much, er,
alacrity as I could muster.
Mission accomplished! Disaster
prevented! And there are happy dogs thanks to treats from the Puppy Crack jar. Enforcer Magoo got a cookie right after he
was presented with a Junior Police Chief Badge in front of a small,
semi-official canid gathering. Every one of those civilian dogs was drooling with
envy – and probably with impatience from waiting for cookies. Molly got a
cookie because she got off my chair quickly without releasing any unpleasant
liquids into its seat cushion. Xyban got a cookie because, well, because he was
just lying around lustily snuffling his . . . well, because he was just so amazingly
engaged and focused while the others were itching to start a pit-fight. Kenosha
got a cookie because fair is fair and she is part of the pack, even if
she's the part that handles pack-crises by running away screaming louder than a
five-year-old girl whose ice cream just fell to the sidewalk.
Oh, and there's a happy
human, too, because I grabbed a beer for myself without having to walk an
extra 5 feet.
#WinWin
#MagooTheJerk
#MmmmmBeeer
#It's5pmSomewhere
She can be reached at JKWragg@yahoo.com
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