Life Will Be the Death of Me: . . . and You Too!(51)
“What did he say?” I asked Dan, referring to the park ranger.
“That it happens all the time.”
So my brother was just a number. A statistic. He was one of many, not anything special. Lots of other people died there too.
“Then why would he even remember it, if it was so common?” I asked Dan, whose intention I know was to make me feel better. “Now he’s just a number?”
“It’s funny how you see that. I was trying to give you comfort—to know that you aren’t the only person that this happened to. That your horrible experience has happened to many other people, and now you’re upset that you aren’t alone in your pain.”
Bingo.
I had forgotten to modify. Identification. Awareness. Modification. Baby steps.
It crossed my mind to pay Dan double for that session, but I remembered this was also behavior that needed to be dropped off at the curb.
I know that in five years it will be politically incorrect to body-shame fat dogs—so I’m going to do it now.
With Tammy gone and Chunk getting older, the writing was on the wall—it was time to get another dog. I went to a rescue two hours north of Los Angeles that specialized in Chow mixes, in search of a new addition to my family. When the older lesbian who owned the place told me about a brother and sister Chow duo that came with the names Bert and Bernice, my eyes started to do cartwheels.
“I don’t even need to see them,” I told her. “I’ll take them both.”
The first time I saw them rounding the corner, I almost climaxed right there on the dirt. Bert looked like a miniature lion and Bernice was his sidecar—a more petite, more portable version of her big, fat brother. Bert is short for Bertrand, by the way, so I had to take a minute to look up at the sun and marinate in that merriment. Bert had all the trimmings of what I look for in a pet: long hair, weight-management issues, and laziness behind the eyes. Bernice was lacking in all three areas and actually maintained very strong eye contact—something I took as a sign of either intelligence or an addiction to Adderall.
The woman who ran the rescue explained that they would need at least two days to give the dogs all their shots and grooming, and that someone from her organization would have to do a home inspection before they gave me the go-ahead. I respected that, but had no idea what it meant. I would have agreed to let her comb through my taxes with a forensic accountant, if it meant having a brother-sister combo platter named Bert and Bernice. I mean, seriously. Does it get any more real than that?
I left Tanner in charge of answering the woman’s questions regarding the adoption, and drove back to Los Angeles, looking forward to the challenge of knowing I was ready for some real doggy parenting this time around. Chunk wouldn’t be thrilled with the discovery that I had two more dogs coming home, but I would just explain to him that we were trying to keep families together. Chunk was on whatever mission I was on, whether he knew it or not.
Bert and Bernice arrived on a Friday afternoon, freshly groomed and ready to rumble. If Bert is shaped like a giant turkey—which he is—Bernice is the drumstick. Bernice is superior to Bert in terms of traditional good looks, but traditional good looks aren’t what I’m after.
Being that it was my year of self-sufficiency, I gave Brandon and Tanner the weekend off. By Sunday morning, I called Tanner and Brandon and told them to get their asses over to the house. The dogs were insane. I couldn’t get them to do anything. They’d run up and down the stairs and act like they wanted to play, but when I got near them, they’d psych me out and outmaneuver me. They were both impossible to wrangle. If I managed to grab Bert and tried to put a leash on him, he’d flinch or snap as soon as I touched his neck. Tying a leash around a dog’s midsection also doesn’t work, and if you don’t believe me, try it. They were skittish and confused, and where there wasn’t drool on the floor, there was piss. My house smelled like a chamber pot and looked like the grounds of the Burning Man festival, three days after it ended.
Once Brandon and Tanner arrived, it was revealed upon further family discussion that not only were these dogs not potty-trained, they hadn’t lived indoors ever. Somewhere along the way, Tanner had forgotten to disclose this little tidbit of information when he was doing their background check. Brandon almost hit Tanner that day.
“So, they’re wildlings?” I asked Tanner.
When I suggested returning the dogs, Brandon lost his temper with me. Losing his temper may be an exaggeration, but he definitely jerked his head in a way I hadn’t seen before, deftly completing what very well looked like a 360-degree circle.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Chelsea,” Brandon said, continuing his bobblehead motion. “You’ve had them for two days. The woman knows who you are, and it wouldn’t look very good to all the people who think you are this big animal lover. Plus, you can’t just quit things every time they get too hard.”
I had been through sagas like this before. I had procured dogs that didn’t work out that had to be rerouted to friends or relatives. The idea that all of a sudden I could handle two new feral dogs was preposterous.
This was supposed to be my year of self-sufficiency—the year I was going to take back my life from my assistants—and here I was, lacking the fundamental skills to clean dog shit off a carpet, and instead sitting on the floor, crying like Brett Kavanaugh during a Senate hearing.