Failure to Communicate with a Dog

I know that the dog I’m watching misses her parents, so I asked her, “do you miss Mommy?”, and she perked up and looked at the door and started wiggling and whining.  So I said, “it’s ok baby, she’ll come get you tomorrow” and the dog looked at me with this vacant expression, like she had no idea what I was talking about.  I call bullshit.  I mean, do you understand English or not?  Jeez.

My Elementary School Nurse, Thelma

When you’re 8 years old and mommy-clingy, sometimes you don’t really want to be at school. Somehow, you learn through the grapevine that, if you let the teacher know you feel like you have to throw up, there’s a nurse’s office where you can go to lie down on a green naugahyde “bed” for a while.  The thought is that if you rest for a bit, you’ll recuperate enough to return to the rigors of third grade studies.  Even at 8, you’ll take what you can get.  If you’re lucky, the school has a nurse who really loves kids and she seems almost like a mommy away from home.  48 years later, I had the extreme pleasure to bump into my elementary school nurse, who had been so kind to me back then.  In her 90s now, and sharp as a tack, she was as lovely as I remembered, and as kind.  And when I told her about my memories of her, and thanked her for being so nice to me, and confessed that I’d mostly faked it, she smiled a pretty smile I remembered vividly.  Though I’m sure I was one of thousands she’d cared for, she said, “I knew when you were faking it.”  Rest in peace, Thelma, and God Bless You.

Exchange Issues

I mostly use self-checkout at stores to avoid interacting with humans.  It just took me a month to get rid of 3 Canadian dimes.

Dog Snacks and The End of Innocence

For as long as I’d known her, the dog had excitedly accepted ice cubes from me as an exotic and decadent treat.  But when she visited me this time, something had changed.  Yes, it was clear that someone had gotten to her, and the magic of this simple frozen snack had been stolen from us.  As the cube melted on the floor where she had, with uncharacteristic disdain, dropped it, we sat in awkward silence, avoiding each other’s glances.

Babies Don't Know What's Right

At the supermarket today, an adorable toddler approached me as I walked down the aisle.  A guy who I assumed was her dad walked behind her.  I’m not a good judge of baby ages, but she was probably still in the “goo goo” chewing-on-the fingers stage.  As they got closer to me, the dad said, “head to the left”.  At that moment, the baby looked up at me and immediately headed to her right.   The dad said, “I said head to the left” and took her by the shoulders and corrected her direction.   The dad then looked at me and sort of grinned in what I hoped was embarrassment, hopefully realizing  then the silliness and futility of his complicated command to this non-verbal goo-goo human.   I smiled and shrugged and said, “maybe she thought you meant my left.”

More Info, Please

Sometimes when I need more information before I act, I’ll ask someone who has a stake in the outcome an “either/or” type question.  Sometimes that person will answer, “Yes”, which makes it abundantly clear to me that the question wasn’t very important to him or her.  Man, that really summons my creative inner douchebag.

Nice Try, Chickens

Not too long ago I saw a news report about a problem with sick chickens.  I’m not sure what kind of illness chickens were supposed to be experiencing then, but whatever it was promised to cause a scarcity of eggs, and thereby inflate their cost to a price we couldn’t even fathom.  I also seem to remember a short period of time when the price of chicken and eggs actually increased a bit.  Anyway, this week I bought 18 eggs at Walmart for .76 cents.  I think they’re Chinese eggs, so it remains to be seen if the quality stands up to Walmart’s normally high bar, but I think just maybe, a few months ago we were all the victims of a vast, albeit failed, poultry price gouge conspiracy.  I know I’m prone to naivete, and it’s well known that the chicken has the least integrity of any bird, wild or domestic, but I feel duped.   I’m still eating the shit out of these eggs, don’t get me wrong, but now it’s more out of vengeance than anything.