scatological

My wife V. is so influenceable. So easily swayed one way or another. Bipolar, I would say. She's also a little OCD. Maybe more than a little.

I have a furry little creature scampering about in my home now. And it's all Jackie's (not her real name) fault!

Well let me backtrack for a bit and explain. A few weeks back we stopped off at Bed Bath & Beyond to do some quick shopping before a BBQ at a friend's house. I pointed out the comically labeled bottles by the front door proclaiming URINE-GONE! As seen on TV! The specially bundled package includes a handy UV blacklight wand that you can use to search for and identify animal and people stains! Yuck! Half jokingly I said that was a product V. would love, so she could carefully inspect every square inch of the carpet and flooring for pee stains if we had a dog. In a rare (and short-lived) moment of epiphany, she said, "You know what, I don't want a dog. They're dirty and messy and they'll pee all over the floor when we're not watching, and shed fur all over the place." I nodded in agreement and left it at that.

We're at the BBQ having a good time, and this chick (we'll call her "Jackie") shows up with her new puppy. It is a Malte-poo, a cross between a Maltese and a Poodle. It's apparently the cutest puppy everyone has ever seen, because they're all fawning over it like a newborn baby. V. naturally starts to play with the dog and hold it, and she's totally in love with the thing. I continue to scarf down chicken wings and hot dogs while I watch in dismay as she starts to exchange phone numbers, email addresses, and the like with Jackie so that she can contact the same kennel and buy the same kind of dog. I can't believe it. What happened to not wanting a dog? What's up with these women who bring these fufu dogs to parties, and ruin the happy lives of guys everywhere?

Anyways she got in contact with the breeder who is in North Dakota and started poring over photos of puppies on their website. For the next several days, she couldn't stop talking about the damn dog. She even set the desktop wallpaper of my home computer to a photo of the puppy, for crissake. I was about ready to yak and hurl from all the cuteness. Before I knew it, she had put a deposit down on one of the puppies. The conversation went something like this.

"What's the difference between a money order and a cashier's check?"

(sensing something is about to go horribly wrong) "Cashier's check you buy at a bank, a money order you can buy at a store or a post office, why?"

"I'm ordering a dog..."

"What? Through the mail?"


Fast forward a week later, I find myself at the San Francisco airport picking up our puppy from the cargo terminal. She's tiny, and trembling a little from the strange environment, and the strange people and sounds. She's also undeniably cute. V. has picked out a name already -- she's calling it Chanel. I roll my eyes every time she says its name. I would have preferred something feistier like Killer, or Turbo. Yeah, those are kick-ass dog names if you ask me. But it's her dog, and what else can I say? I got the extravagant toy that I wanted (the IS350), so I can't say diddly-squat about her dog. Guess I'll have to go out and buy a new set of racing tires to console myself.

We brought her home yesterday morning. The damn thing was crying and making noises at 4 or 5AM, wanting some attention. It's like having a baby but with less likelihood of it growing up and buying you a Cadillac when it's successful. This morning V. had to go to work but came back home at lunchtime to check on the dog. To her amazement it managed to knock down the doorgate and bust out of its little bathroom prison. It was happily wandering around the house and greeted her when she got home, tail wagging. V. locked her up in the cage we bought and started obsessively combing the carpet and floor for signs of feces and urine. I found that very amusing indeed. I think we're going to need a bottle of that Urine-Gone and that blacklight wand after all.