Tag: satire

Rule Number One – Change the Batteries

Rule number one – when you buy batteries to replace the dead ones in the indoor shock collars for the dogs, it’s always a good idea to actually change them.  I bought the batteries for the collars the very next morning and as is always the case, I got busy multitasking and totally forgot to change out the dead for the freshly charged batteries.  We had dinner plans that night with my best friend and her significant other, who were in town only for the weekend, so I was busy trying to get everything done for the day and prod Mitch along. 

Mitch is busy working on our latest renovation project since the bathroom finally was finished.  The latest project is totally gutting the dining room and sheet rocking the room ceiling and walls and covering the hard wood floors with bamboo.  Mitch is not a social butterfly, hermit fits the description better, so getting him to stop the rehab and get cleaned up in a timely fashion, is like prodding a giant tortoise to walk faster.  Not going to happen.  So while I’m prodding, nagging and giving him the Look, I completely forgot to change out the batteries.  We go to dinner and have a great time, because once I finally get Mitch out of the cave and into the light, he opens up and enjoys himself.  He’ll even grudgingly admit it later, maybe.   

We get home to barking dogs waiting for me to open the door and once inside, I’m overwhelmed with the wave of destruction the dogs have waged on the kitchen.  In the living room an empty butter container that had housed an unopened pound of whipped butter that one or more dogs had taken from the kitchen table and consumed.  Yummy, eating a pound of butter.  I can’t wait to see which dog ate that.  Farther in the living was a plastic jar of honey or what was left of it.  The lid had been chewed off and the top of the jar had been chewed with about one quarter of the honey eaten.  I picked up the empty butter container, lid and the honey jar and walked into the kitchen to survey the damage waiting for me.  The recycle bin had been opened and contents strewn about.  Why, it’s not like anything in there was edible.

The trash can was knocked over again with trash all over the floor.  Orso also left a wonderful gift in the guest bathroom off the kitchen, he peed on the tile floor.  Lovely.  Surprisingly no one looked at all remorseful.  Imagine that.

The trashcan will now be removed and a smaller one will go under the sink.  God help me if they figure out how to open cabinet doors.  The butter and honey get put up higher, just like living with toddlers and the recycle container will be emptied more often and left outside when I’m gone. 

Oh yes and I am going to change the batteries in the collars right now.

Dead Batteries

The batteries died in the indoor shock collars the dogs wear when left alone in the house.  Why do the dogs wear shock collars in the house and how did we find out that the batteries were dead you ask?  Well let me tell you.  First off we discovered the indoor shock collars when AJ and Charlie discovered the pantry while being left to their own devices during the work week.  After eating their way through the well stocked pantry, we had to find something to keep them out of the kitchen.  Kennels didn’t work, AJ would either destroy the metal ones or chew through the plastic airline crates.  Quite by accident I found these really nifty indoor collars that emit a high pitched squeal then a mild shock if the dog gets too close to the transmitter you place wherever you don’t want the dog(s) to be.  Works like a champ with good batteries, not so much with dead batteries, as we discovered today.

Today we came home from work for lunch as usual, but there was no barking dogs waiting for me to open the door.  That should have been my first clue.  I opened the door and two of the dogs, AJ and Orso came running.  Charlie was a little bit further behind.  That should have been my second clue.  After the dogs rushed out the door toward Mitch to go pee, I walked inside.  As I rounded the corner from the entry hall to the living room two things caught my eye.  A can of whole cashews standing upright with the lid pulled off  and the empty meat tray I had washed this morning and had placed in the recycle bin.  The lid to the can of cashews sporting chew marks was lying on the rug next to the can of cashews sans cashews.  Somehow one or more dogs had stuck his muzzle into the can and scooped out all of the cashews.  They didn’t knock the can over just sucked out all of the cashews.  My dogs have true talent.  The can had been on the counter in the kitchen and was almost full.  The plastic meat tray had housed the boneless beef ribs that I was cooking in the crockpot.  I had washed the tray to remove all meaty traces before putting it in the recycle bin.  Obviously someone was paying attention this morning and watched me put it in the bin. 

I almost picked up the evidence but decided to leave the crime scene intact so Mitch could experience the scene as I had.  I walked into the kitchen expecting the worst.  Luckily the crockpot was still cooking away on the counter unmolested.  I couldn’t say the same for the recycle bin.  It had been pulled out to the middle of the kitchen with the lid pulled off.  For dogs without thumbs, these three are extremely adept at getting container lids off.

Thinking this wasn’t as bad as I imagined it could be, I turned around and saw the trash can lying on its side with the contents strewn all around.  Oh joy, what a way to spend my lunch hour, cleaning up after heathens had gone shopping.  I see a trip to the store for more batteries in my future.

It’s Them or Me

It’s them or me, and my money is on me. I’m the one with the opposable thumbs. I have the power to reason through a problem. I have tenacity. I also have osteoporosis. I was diagnosed in the fall of last year. Me with osteoporosis, no way. I’ve taken calcium religiously for decades. I was devastated when I found out. I’ve always thought that I was unbreakable. No matter how many times the dogs knocked me down; (and they knocked me down a lot) I would get right back up with nothing more than a few bruise to show for it.  Well there was that one time I tripped over the dogs on a walk and tore the cartilage in my knee.  Mitch had to walk home get the El Camino then come back and get me sitting on the side of the road.  Not now.  I have 5% bone loss, which I was told is significant bone loss. So now I’m taking my weekly dose of Fosamax and have realized that I’m quite breakable.  I’m now afraid of falling and breaking something.  I don’t like feeling this way.  I don’t like fear. 

I’ve not taken the lunging or the yanking the dogs do while walking seriously until now.  It’s been a source of entertainment and fodder for my stories.  But now I’ve realized that together the three dogs are much bigger and stronger than me.  I was five foot two before osteoporosis and losing a half inch, which makes me a great boat anchor dragging behind the leashes, but little more than that if the three choose to charge after the object of their interest. 

Basically they’re good dogs, fairly well behaved, but tend to feed off of each other’s emotions.  If one gets excited about seeing someone, the other two join in and I can’t hold them back.  Not anymore.  So now the serious training begins.  I know labs are hardheaded and stubborn, Orso especially seems awfully thick at times, brilliant other times.  We call him “Box of Rocks”.  Charlie is just hardheaded and willful.  When it comes to a battle of the wills, he will not budge one iota.  The thought of violence is often considered with him.  AJ is soft and submissive, but when no one expects it, he will instigate trouble then stand back and let the other two get yelled at.  Sneaky.

Training three dogs at once is a challenge.  One at a time would be easier, but I don’t have the time to work with each dog individually.  So three at a time is our only option.  I’ve given Mitch the ultimatum, “It’s either they get trained to exhibit patience and not lunge or we can’t have the dogs”.  And I have no intention of not having the dogs.

So it’s them or me.  Bet on me.

Look Ma No Cavities

Charlie came through the dental cleaning with flying colors.  No cavities, just one cracked tooth, but our vet said it still looked healthy so he left it in.  He came out to greet me with a total lack of manners.  He jumped up on the counter pretty clumsily, still suffering from the effects of the anesthesia.  Charlie looked a little loopy, his eyes drooped slightly, but he was happy to see me, all was forgiven. 

I went to pick him up on my way home from work, so I was driving my car, a Pontiac Firebird, which normally none of the dogs get to ride in.  Besides no room for a dog, I like driving in a car with no dog hair swirling around my face, or leaving a dog hair contrail when I drive with the top down.  I put Charlie in the car hoping he’d climb in the back and lay down.  No, he wanted to hang out in my lap.  I had to remind him that he was a sixty five pound dog, not a yorkie.   

We got home just in time for dinner.  Charlie rushed into the kitchen and drank water like he’d been lost in the desert for a week.  Poor baby.  As I dragged out the dog food buckets and dog bowls, Charlie looked at me with a skeptical look, wondering if he was really going to get fed or if I was just torturing him.  He ate with gusto, as always. 

At bedtime, Charlie climbed into his round bed, snuggled down and slept like a rock all night.  All is right with the world, again.

Not A Happy Camper

Charlie is not happy with us this morning.  He didn’t get his breakfast this morning.  No carrots as treats, no fruit after our breakfast and no water.  No, we’ve not decided to save money by rotating starving a different dog each day.  Even though it may come to that if gas prices keep going up.  No, Charlie has an appointment with the vet to get his teeth cleaned this morning, so it was no food or water after midnight for Charlie.

Which sucks for us, because even though we know why he can’t have anything while the other two get to dine sumptuously on Science Diet dog food, all the water they want and the exotic carrots they devour as treats, try explaining that to a dog.  All Charlie understands is that while AJ and Orso were eating breakfast this morning, he was locked up in the bathroom with Mitch.  Some consolation prize for a hungry dog.  I could hear the angry yelps all the way from the other side of the house behind the closed doors.

The look on his face after coming back from our walk was scary when no carrots were handed out to any of the dogs.  The other two kept looking at each other then at me wondering what was up too.  But I figured it would be truly cruel to pass out treats to two and not Charlie.  It was a challenge putting the water bucket down on the floor for AJ and standing guard, hovering over the water bowl until he was finished so Charlie wouldn’t try to drink any.  After watching with a hurt look on his face, Charlie finally left the kitchen and lay down in the dining room, waiting to be forgiven for whatever he did wrong and finally get to eat.

After our breakfast was over and no one got any pineapple chunks as is the usual custom, we have labs and they eat anything, remember, Charlie gave me one last hurt look of self pity and stomped off to the bedroom.  There he curled up into a tight little ball and refused to lift his head to look at me when I tried to pet him and explain once again why he couldn’t have anything to eat or drink.  I know he doesn’t understand me or care, all he knows is that I won’t feed him.  So of course now I feel terribly guilty even though as a human being with opposable thumbs, I know that what we’re doing is the best for him.  It doesn’t help though does it? 

When I left to go to work, Charlie still refused to look at me, curled in that tight ball.  I had no idea that dogs pout.  Who knew?

Just One Glance

That’s all it takes.  One look from Orso with his head lowered and it’s GAME ON!  AJ, our eleven year old lab accepts the challenge with loads of exuberance, causing Orso, our five year old lab to reply in kind.  This sets off a charge toward each other from opposite corners of the room and at the last moment just as the two would crash into each other, both raise up on their back legs and slam into each other with a forceful chest bump.  Then they hit the floor chewing and barking at each other.  AJ will then lunge at Orso, who for some reason will back up around to the hallway or stand in the bedroom doorway and bark at AJ. 

AJ will then pretend to charge, stop short of actually connecting with Orso, then back up and bark back at Orso.  Orso will lunge back and pretend to come out of the bedroom but doesn’t.  The coward.  All the while this is going on between those two, Charlie will stand at my side and bark at me, just to let me know that AJ and Orso were behaving badly and that he had nothing to do with it.  If I don’t react and make them stop on a timely basis for Charlie, he will then join the fray, taking it out on Orso.  This causes a mass Orso attack, hair up barking, snarling and chewing.  No blood is drawn just wet slobbery necks and legs. 

Orso will escape run towards the bedroom and leap onto the bed from the doorway with Charlie in hot pursuit.  One of these days, one or both of the dogs is going to crash through the bedroom window.  On that day, we’ll have dog stew for dinner.

Today Is Not My Day

Today is just not my day.  I didn’t sleep well, even though I took a sleeping pill last night.  Maybe having a seventy nine poundLabradorlying across my legs all night had something to do with my lack of sleep.  Consequently I didn’t even make the effort to get up and walk on the treadmill.  Sometime between last night after yoga class and this morning I lost one of my rings.  I didn’t notice it until I took my rings off to put on lotion this morning.  Talk about being aware of my surroundings. 

Since I spent the morning scouring the house, my gloves and the dogs’ mouths for any trace of the missing ring, I was running a little late to work.  That was when I noticed that I was almost out of gas.  That necessitated a trip to the gas station, woohoo.  There goes another thirty dollars and I get to smell like gas all day.  What a waste of the Calvin Klein, Euphoria I dearly love.

I get to work, turn on my computer and attempt to change my voicemail recording, but kept getting an automated response saying I was entering the wrong access code.  I thought “what the..”.  That was when I noticed that the extension on the display was not mine.  My first thought was that some jackass was playing a practical joke and had switched phones.  Not funny.  I spent five minutes looking through the extension list looking for the person whose extension I had.  I found it under “W”, of course it would be “W”.  To make matters worse, it was a person who worked the parts call center.  That means my phone would ring nonstop from customers wanting to order something that I would have no idea what they were asking for or how to get it to them.  I had no idea who had my phone or if they were calling 900 numbers on my extension, oh joy.  I could hear HR calling me to the office.  And it’s not even 7am.

I think I should just throw in the towel, go home and crawl back under the covers and the seventy nine pound lab.

A Poor Lost Soul

A washing machine has mysteriously appeared in front on our little burg’s City Hall.  It showed up last week and so far no one has come to claim it.  I have to ask myself if there was some ulterior motive behind the washing machine’s sudden appearance.  Is someone trying to make a point?  Does the City need to clean its dirty laundry?  Does the City have dirty laundry?  We live in a teeny tiny city with a population of about 250, only about 122 homes.  So how much dirty laundry can we have? 

The front entrance to the parking lot at City Hall is well lit with one of those horrendously bright mercury vapor lights, so I would think that the person or persons dropping off said washing machine were well illuminated and therefore either very gutsy or complete idiots.  Or maybe they were wearing cloaking devices that shielded their identities.  I wouldn’t have the nerve or the stupidity to discard an appliance in front of a city municipality structure.  I guess my parents beat the fear of consequences too well into my hardhead growing up.  Maybe that’s the problem today, minimal or no consequences for our actions.  Sorry I almost climbed up on my soapbox.

Anyway back to the speculation about the wayward washing machine.  Could it have run away from home, tired of all the dirty clothes it had been forced day in and day out to clean; now choosing to live a life on the mean streets of our humble little burg?  Maybe it’s just waiting for the bus, even though no bus ever comes to our fair town (not counting the school bus).  Maybe the previous owners are just getting a jump on our annual City Cleanup day.  The only problem with that theory is that one of the rules of the City Cleanup is no appliances.      

Maybe I should take pictures of the washing machine and post around the city and surrounding areas to see if anyone has lost the machine and is looking for it.  Wouldn’t that be a happy ending?

I Got Rhythm – Not!

When I was supposed to be concentrating on my breathing and clearing my thoughts in yoga class, I started thinking about my performance or lack there of, at my last Zumba class.  I was thinking about Zumba class partially because it was on my mind and partially because I don’t dare totally relax in the breathing exercise for fear of falling asleep.  Mitch swears that I snore and even though I know I don’t snore, God forbid some fluke accident and I did maybe snore, I would be mortified.  And that would be the end of yoga.  Yoga classes twice a week and Zumba class once a week are my most recent attempt to get back in some semblance of shape.  I really love yoga class and the way I feel since starting the class last summer.  I can do a tripod again, something I hadn’t been able to do for decades.  I can’t remember the yoga name for it, but we called it a tripod in school.  A tripod is where you are on your hands and knees.  You lower your head to the mat between your hands, with your arms bent at a right angle, then bring your knees up and place them on your bent arms and balance yourself on your head and hands.  When you get really good, you can move up to a headstand, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.  Since I’ve had such great success doing yoga, I figured I’d branch out and take more challenging classes, like Zumba.  Yeah right.

I’ve had two classes so far, the first with two other women and the second was just me alone with the instructor.  I really like my instructor.  She is the sweetest person.  Young in shape and she says positive things to me.  I stood behind her off to the side so that I could watch her and myself in the mirror.  Big mistake!  I should have just watched her and not me.  Her moves were fluid and in perfect rhythm to the music, while I was stiff, graceless and behind on every move.  She would signal the upcoming move but half the time I was going the wrong direction, doing the move backwards, sideways or not at all.  Basically I suck at Zumba.  Maybe I was wearing the wrong clothes.  A baggy t-shirt and sweats are not especially sexy or hot looking when trying to dance to sultry Latin tunes.  Even the creepy old guy that came to gawk in the doorway took one look at me and ran screaming into the street.

Halfway through the class, as I was sucking air, sweating like a racehorse and becoming even more wooden in my moves, it dawned on me, maybe I should take up kickboxing.  I don’t have to be able to sway my hips in a sexy manner when doing a roundhouse kick.  I think I can do tough, because fluid and rhythm are definitely not in my body’s vocabulary.

My After Christmas “To Don’t” List

Every year everyone always makes “To Do” lists either before the holidays or after and somewhere on the list is usually lose weight, (which never happens), payoff credit cards, (also which never happens) and get in shape, (but which shape is not clearly defined).  Well this year I’m going for a different approach.  I’m making a “To Don’t” List.  Because as a kid growing up, the thought of punishment for the crime bothered me more than the reward system.  We’ll just have to see if this works out better for me.

My “To Don’t” List includes the following”

Don’t dwell on what I can’t change

Don’t worry so much about the future, it will take care of itself

Don’t put off telling Mitch, the rest of my family and friends how much I love them and need them in my life

Don’t forget to play everyday

Don’t forget to laugh out loud everyday

Don’t let the negative people in my life infect me

Don’t be afraid to walk up to a total stranger and start up a conversation (you never know what you’ll learn)

Don’t ever walk around with a frown it makes me look old

Don’t refuse to try new wines, food or adventures

Don’t stop plotting something evil every day, (because evil is almost always more fun)

And most importantly,

Don’t look back on my life and ever say I wish that I had done that. 

This is what I’m going to try and accomplish from this day forward.  I’ll let you know how it works.