Puppy Love
Every so often, Lis and I will overnight babysit my nephew, now 4-years-old; and on these occasions, every woman in my family takes the opportunity to hiss, “Tough, huh? A real armful, huh? And that was only one night — imagine you had him all the time! Not ready for a kid, are you?”
To which, of course, I reply: Fuck no! What makes you think I want a kid yet?! Jesus Christ, bite your fucking tongue! (I might tone it down a little in front of Lis, but she’s saying the same thing with her eyes. Trust me.)
Anyway, it’s actually not that hard babysitting my nephew. Now that he can speak in full sentences, it’s relatively easy to determine what he wants, and explain that, no, he can’t have that. When he was younger, it was like, What? Why are you crying? Are you hungry? Are you sleepy? Are you on fire? Am I on fire? Now we muse, “Ooh — no. No, we’re not watching that stupid fucking Disney movie for the fiftieth time.” And then we watch it again. But I digress.
I mention all this because we’re presently puppy-sitting, and having a dog on our hands for three weeks is easily a more intensive crash course in parenting. Seriously — you dog people are already aware, but everyone else should consider the following:
Bye-bye, social life
Remember how I used to go to Happy Hour every day? I remember that. Well, I don’t anymore — maybe once or twice a week, if I’m lucky. See, Lis tutors until late, and if the prince hasn’t been fed by 6:00 (though he prefers his dinner at 4:00, truth be told), it ain’t happening. And then I get to feel shitty and miserable until the next morning, while I silently pray he finishes his breakfast.
Bye-bye, sleep
The dog also likes to sleep in our bed; we put up a valiant fight, but he broke us the second night. (I think barking might rival crying for pure annoyingness. At least crying makes you think a child might be hurt, or genuinely distressed; barking’s like a car alarm issued by a mammal.) We generally kick him down by our feet, though he tends to gravitate toward our heads. And believe you me, he’s awake when I get up at 6:00. Good god is he awake.
Bye-bye, intimacy
Maybe if I had a son, I could chalk this down as an Oedipal complex, scare him with my penis, and be done with it — but the puppy hates any display of affection between Lis and myself. I think it’s because he wants to remain the center of attention — but a kiss, a hug, a look that lingers a moment too long? Yap, yap, bark, growl. I’ve had sex once in the past two weeks. I vaguely remember what that was like, too.
Bye-bye, interesting shit to talk about
Which is to say, you find yourself commenting on the most mundane crap, if only because you spend a fair amount of your time observing it, and your significant other is the only person around to notice. “Hey, have you picked up on how long his tongue is? Yeah, me too.”
Well … who gives a shit? Sadly, you do. Now, if you’re a good and decent person, you don’t impose your newfound profundity upon your friends — but I’ve been tempted just to call someone and say, “Yeah, the dog likes to walk around the kitchen rug, for some reason.” Like they’re going to respond, “Wait, I’m coming right over!”
So, there you have it: dog-sitting is closer akin to parenting than handling an actual child, even one that’s blood-related. Thankfully, there is one redeeming feature to our situation: you know how some people have ugly babies, and you think, Oh, those poor people — do they know their baby’s ugly? They must. How do they live with the shame? How do they even look at that little baboon? Please, Vishnu, spare me the torment of an ugly baby!
Yeah, well, take a look at this pretty motherfucker:
