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CHAPTER EIGHT
I spent the better part of my early twenties being too much of a weakling to tell my friends that I had absolutely no interest in picking them up from airports, seeing them perform in their improvisation troupes, or, the worst of all three, dog-sitting. I don’t have a problem with animals in general, but I’m just not one of those people who’s looking to pack my schedule with some extra one-on-one time with a friend’s dog.
I also don’t appreciate people who celebrate their dog’s birthday with “dog parties,” and then invite their friends who don’t even have dogs. I understand why people like dogs, and I think they definitely bring more to the table than cats or those godforsaken ferrets, but I don’t think it’s healthy for people to treat their dogs like they are real people. Another thing I take issue with are people who take their dogs on “play dates,” or even worse, people who choose to dress their dogs up in outfits better suited for homosexuals participating in a gay pride parade. Dog costumes are right up there with something else I find particularly offensive: sweater vests.
A friend of mine, Lesley, whom I had dog-sat for in the past, called me to tell me she and her sixty-year-old boyfriend were going away for a long weekend to celebrate the holiday. Why they assumed I had no plans of my own for Flag Day was not only insulting on a personal level, but on a national level as well.
“We wanted to know if you wanted to dog-sit for Pepper and Daisy,” she said to me over the phone while I was trying to figure out the best way to disguise a huge bruise I had on my upper arm from a Yahtzee tournament I had participated in the night before. I wanted to tell her that I’d rather be forced to watch a Lord of the Rings marathon and then be raped by a hobbit than dog-sit for anyone. But I hadn’t had enough therapy at that point to know about creating boundaries, so instead I said, “Definitely!”
Lesley and her father/boyfriend live in a big house in Brentwood and are under the impression that anyone who lives in an apartment would jump at the chance to sleep in a real live house. This is not the case, unless of course you were raised in a shelter. Or if the house you’re pet-sitting in has a pool, butler, steam room, and a closet filled with cocaine. I take absolutely no pleasure in staying at other people’s homes. Even when I go to visit a friend in another city, I rarely stay at their place. I prefer hotels and not having to worry about walking around naked or farting, which happens almost every time I get into a cross-legged position. The biggest discomfort of all is sleeping in someone else’s bed, which is not appealing on any level-unless, of course, penetration is involved.
I went by later that day to pick up the keys from Lesley, giving myself the middle finger the whole way there. Not only was it imperative that I sleep at their house because if Pepper, their newest dog, wasn’t put in a crate at night she’d shit all over the floor, but they also made it a regular habit to cook fresh ground hamburger meat twice a week for Daisy, their golden retriever. One of my responsibilities would include taking a big log of hamburger meat out of the freezer, defrosting it, and then cooking it in a frying pan. Each batch was meant to last for three days, but with me also snacking on it regularly, I ended up having to make three to four batches.
I had met Lesley a couple of years earlier when I had worked at a restaurant called Chaya Venice. I wasn’t even really good friends with her, but I made the mistake of dog-sitting for another girl at work, and word spread like an AMBER Alert. The most ridiculous thing about it was I had never led anyone to believe I even liked dogs that much. The only animals I had ever been publicly effusive about were apes. Aside from their bright pink assholes that stick out like toilet plungers, I think that as far as personalities go, they really have the most to offer.
The minute I arrived at Lesley’s house, insanity ensued. Anytime the front door was opened, Lesley had a full-on wrestling match with Daisy, the big dog, while simultaneously shooing away Pepper, the Peekapoo, so that neither would escape. My feeling is, if a dog is that hard up to break free, let it go. It’s like a boyfriend who wants to break up. We all know the old adage, “If you set someone free, and he never comes back, then he was never yours.” I understand the main fear with setting dogs loose is that they could get hit by a car, but so could an ex-boyfriend. That’s just a chance you have to take.
In between her screaming “Daisy, down!” and “Pepper, no!,” we chitchatted and she reminded me how to use all the TVs and DVD players and told me where the dog park was. I wanted to tell her that I’d sooner buy an RV and drive across the country with Lorenzo Lamas than hang out for the afternoon at a smelly park covered in dog shit.
Lesley’s lover, Jerry, came out midway through my briefing and reminded me not to leave any small items out, referring to the last time I dog-sat, when Daisy ate my cell phone, contact-lens case, and an entire box of Godiva chocolates I had found in their cupboard. They were nice enough to reimburse me for the phone, but obviously I didn’t tell them about the box of chocolates since I was the one who left them out in the first place. The important lesson I learned from that is that dogs do not necessarily go into cardiac arrest if they have chocolate. They also need to have a history of alcoholism, smoking, and/or a drug dependency.
Jerry was a really nice guy, but my main problem with him was that he had a double-decker toe. His middle toe laid directly on top of his index toe. If this is the hand you’re dealt in life, then fine, but at least have the courtesy to keep the situation under wraps until all parties have been fully prepped for an unveiling. He constantly walked around in open-toed sandals as if nothing whatsoever was wrong. I find that to be not only arrogant, but Jerry obviously had no concern for other people’s comfort levels or gag reflexes, which is just plain disrespectful.
The worst part was that while I was trying not to stare at his deformity, the stupid little dog, Pepper, insisted on jumping up and down-ricocheting off my leg, back onto the floor, and up again-and I had to pretend in front of his owners that he was one of the cutest things I’d ever seen.
The most insulting part of this dog-sitting bonanza is that Lesley insisted on paying me forty dollars a day. I know that’s kind of generous, but at the time, I was a regular on a television show, and although it was on a cable vagina network, I was making plenty of money to live on. I was dog-sitting as a favor, not to rake in an extra one hundred and sixty bucks over a four-day period.
I left there wondering why I was constantly getting myself into situations that I wanted no part of. I called my boyfriend at the time, Mohammed. That wasn’t his actual name, but he was half Persian, which he failed to inform me of until our third date, and as punishment for trying to cover up his heritage, I thought it best to only refer to him as the most Middle Eastern name I could think of: Mohammed. Being Persian is very similar to the double-decker toe. These are things you need to brace another person for.
Heavy M and I had been dating for a couple of months and we pretty much spent every night together. We clicked instantly, and I had wondered if maybe he was the perfect match for my personality, but also wrestled with the idea of our children being raised by the Ayatollah. If I had to compare him to well-known celebrities, I’d say he looked like a cross between David Duchovny and Will Smith. He looked a lot like David, but his skin had the tone that some people would refer to as olive. The olives I come in contact with the most are green, so I would more accurately describe his skin tone as a café latte. He was definitely sexy due to having the same laid-back personality as Matthew McConaughey, minus having the inclination to play the bongos while high on the Mary Jane.