Another Bad-Dog Book Read online

  “I don’t know . . .” Steve hesitated.

  And so it was decided.

  By the end of the trial weekend, our family had settled on a new name for Cricket. We agreed to call him Eli, though I quickly babified this to E-Pie-Pie, just as I used to babify names for both my daughters, until they made me stop.

  Within days, Eli had bonded with everyone in our family. But like an answered, neurotic prayer, he clearly loved me best. His whole tiny body waggled when he saw me. During the day, he followed me from room to room, and at night he burrowed under the covers on my side of the bed, like a fuzzy hot-water bottle warming my feet. In the car, Eli rested on my lap, his head tucked between his paws, just clearing the underside of the steering wheel.

  Toward the end of the week the girls and I took Eli shopping for a doggie sweater and toys. I made him an appointment at the groomer for a haircut and blueberry facial. To my mind, Eli was already my dog, as much a part of our family, no, more so, than some of Steve’s closest relatives.

  Meanwhile, the only contact I’d had with the rescue-dog volunteer was a brief email exchange after the trial weekend, in which I told her how much I loved “Cricket.”

  Great! she wrote back.

  That’s why it was such a shock when she sent me another email on Friday, telling me I needed to return him. Apparently, another family had visited the rescue-dog’s website and filled out an application to adopt him. Because I hadn’t completed the paperwork, the organization’s director assumed Cricket was still available, and promised him to this other family.

  No, no, no! I shot back an email. No, no, no!

  I’m so sorry, the rescue-dog volunteer responded. The shelter operates on a first-come-first-served basis. You can hurry up and fill out an application online, but we’re already checking the other family’s references.

  I found the rescue-dog operation’s website and hastily completed the adoption form. Then I checked my email, hoping for a miraculously fast response to my application. Because I was at my computer, I figured I should work on a writing assignment, but all I could think about was Eli. I looked at him resting on his new fleece pillow, so content. What if the rescue dog volunteer wrote back with bad news? Was I really going to let another family take him?

  I thought of all those Lifetime movies where the mothers take their children on the lam to avoid sharing custody with their serial murderer spouses. Those women may have had seriously bad taste in men, but they also had guts! And then there were those other mothers you read about in the newspapers who instantly develop super human strength to lift cars off their children. If I had super powers, I thought, opening a new file on the computer, I could use them to save Eli, and that would only be for starters.....

  THE ADVENTURES OF SUPER JONI! (AND HER AMAZING DOG E-PIE-PIE)

  PART ONE: THE DARING RESCUE

  Super Joni was naturally blond, blue-eyed, and remarkably youthful for her age. By day, she was self-actualized. By night, she never succumbed to sugar cravings, or watched Netflix for hours on end. Super Joni lived a life of quiet domesticity in an old house (old in a good way) with her husband and two daughters. But she was also one of the most famous people in the world. In fact, she was a royal!

  Ping!

  One day, an urgent message popped up on Super Joni’s electronic hotline, which she checked compulsively in case someone, anyone, needed her. A little disheveled dog with nine bad teeth and saucer eyes was in trouble at the animal shelter!

  Super Joni applied some makeup (even though she really didn’t need any), slid on her skinny jeans, which were never too tight, whipped up a nourishing casserole for her family’s dinner that night, and was out the door in less than five minutes.

  “Super Joni to the rescue!” cried the royal watchers who followed her every move, but always kept a respectable distance. Super Joni waved to her adoring public as she sped away in her Prius. (Not only was she a champion of homeless dogs, but of the environment, too!)

  Just in the knick of time, Super Joni arrived at the animal shelter. An Evil Rescue-Dog Volunteer was about to hand over the little, disheveled dog to an unsuitable family with a toddler. The toddler’s dimpled hands clenched and unclenched in anticipation of playing too rough.

  “Stop!” Super Joni commanded. “The little, disheveled dog stays with me!”

  “You’re too late!” The Evil Rescue-Dog Volunteer brandished a completed adoption application. “Our policy is first come, first served!” But even before Super Joni had developed super powers, she had never been afraid to cut in line.

  Jab! Jab! Zumba!

  With a mix of high cardio kickboxing and Latin dance moves, Super Joni overpowered the Evil Rescue-Dog Volunteer (and burned 1,429 calories in the process). Quickly, she locked the woman in a dog crate with a very bad beagle who promptly ate the completed application.

  “You’ll never get away with this!” cried the Evil Rescue-Dog Volunteer. “I’ll have my revenge.”

  But Super Joni was not to be intimidated. She gave the unsuitable family with the toddler a pit bull mix, and sent them on their way. Then she picked up the little, disheveled dog and cuddled him.

  “From now on, your name shall be E-Pie-Pie,” she said softly. The dog’s pointy ears perked up; his saucer eyes brimmed with love and gratitude. Already, Super Joni knew that he loved her unconditionally, just like all of her friends and family.

  PART 2: NOWHERE TO HIDE

  It was late at night. Super Joni’s husband and two daughters were sound asleep in their beds by the time she stumbled home from a party. E-Pie-Pie greeted her happily and off they went to the kitchen to reheat some pizza. The house was quiet, too quiet, or maybe Super Joni just wanted some action.

  A strange noise sounded at the front door. Look there! Super Joni peeked through the glass. A suspicious looking mini-van sat parked across the darkened street. It must belong to the Evil Rescue-Dog Volunteer! Who else would drive such a gas guzzler! And given the van comfortably seated seven, she likely had brought accomplices.

  Super Joni knew she needed to hide E-Pie-Pie, and fast!

  Bam. Crash. Clunk.

  Super Joni emptied a hall closet stuffed with products as seen on TV—Bacon Genies, Snuggies, Ronco Rotisseries. There was that Abdominal Cruncher she’d bought for her husband on his birthday! Once cleared of years’ worth of accumulated junk, the back of the closet revealed a secret hideaway, rumored to have once been used to shelter runaway slaves.

  Super Joni placed E-Pie-Pie and his fleece pillow in the hideaway. My goodness, she thought, barely squeezing out of the tiny enclosure. Either people were a lot smaller in the old days, or the previous owners had lied about this house being part of the Underground Railroad.

  Footsteps sounded in the next room! Quickly, Super Joni flicked off the lights, and waited to make her move.

  “Ouch! What the #%?!! . . . ?”

  The lights flicked back on. Super Joni’s husband stood in the hallway, rubbing his big toe, which he had stubbed on the Ab Cruncher. He surveyed the junk-strewn hallway. Given how Super Joni and her husband had been married for a very, very long time, she knew exactly what he must be thinking—Yay! My Ab Cruncher. Now I can start doing sit-ups again!

  Scratch. Scratch. Itch.

  Oh no! If E-Pie-Pie didn’t stop scratching, his hiding spot was sure to be discovered! Super Joni’s husband looked at the small door inside the emptied closet, then back to Super Joni. “I don’t suppose you want to tell me,” he shook his head and sighed, “why you’ve stuck the dog in the slave hideaway?”

  And that’s when Super Joni knew, no matter how carefully she might try to hide E-Pie-Pie from the Evil Rescue-Dog Volunteer, he would never be safe in this house.

  Outside, a sliver of moon silhouetted the mini van still parked across the street. Super Joni retrieved her super-powered eyeglasses and surveilled it through the window. On second thought, she realized, she had seen this van before. Maybe it belonged to the royal watchers . . .or the neigh
bors, who owned one just like it?

  At the door, the strange noise sounded again! Joni flung it open, and in sauntered Milo the cat.

  PART 3: ON THE LAM! AND OTHER LIFE LESSONS

  For E-Pie-Pie, life on the lam meant freedom from the Evil Rescue-Dog Volunteer. For Super Joni, it meant travel, adventure, romance, and room service. Back home, her family completely understood that this escape from quiet domesticity was simply in response to a crisis, and in no way a reflection on them.

  One afternoon, Super Joni and E-Pie-Pie were getting haircuts and blueberry facials at a five-star hotel spa in Aspen or Oslo or Luanda. Anyway, it was one of those places where no ordinary person could afford to live, but Super Joni was no ordinary person.

  (Theme to Swan Lake)

  Suddenly, the ringtone sounded on Super Joni’s mobile hotline. She read the caller ID: EVIL RESCUE-DOG VOLUNTEER.

  “How did you get this number?!” Super Joni demanded.

  “I’ve kidnapped your entire family,” the Evil Rescue-Dog Volunteer exclaimed. “Bring me the little, disheveled dog or else.”

  Super Joni wasn’t born yesterday. “My entire family?” She laughed without mirth. “I doubt you’d last five minutes in a room with all my relatives.”

  “Bring me the dog,” repeated the Evil Rescue-Dog Volunteer, “or you’ll never see your precious husband and daughters again!”

  Faster than you can say “freebies,” Super Joni snatched all the amenities in her hotel suite, including the plush robes. As she and E-Pie-Pie raced home in the Prius, she reflected on her life on the lam. It had been good—no, great—while it lasted, but now that she was in danger of losing her family, nothing seemed to matter but seeing them again!

  The Prius silently coasted into the animal shelter parking lot. Super Joni watched and waited. Suddenly, the very bad beagle bolted out the door, while the Evil Rescue-Dog Volunteer struggled to hold onto his leash. The woman’s furtive glances confirmed that either she was hiding something (or someone!) nearby, or she wasn’t planning to clean up after her dog.

  Super Joni waited until the very bad beagle had dashed around the corner then hurried into the shelter. But before she could find her family, the Evil Rescue-Dog Volunteer had returned!

  Bark! Howl! Thud!

  The very bad beagle, excited to see a visitor, greeted Super Joni by knocking her backwards with his muddy paws. She fell and bumped her head hard on a Kong Extreme. The next thing she knew, she was seeing stars. The Evil Rescue-Dog Volunteer, seeing her chance, seized the indestructible chew toy and raised her arm to strike a deadly blow . . .

  “Yip! Yip! Yap!”

  Like a rabid Chihuahua Bat, E-Pie-Pie flew into the room. He nipped at the Evil Rescue-Dog Volunteer’s heels and elbows. The very bad beagle started chasing him, thinking it was a game. Then a yellow Lab loped into the room, followed by another dog, and another . . . All the bad dogs had chewed through their kennels!

  To escape the mayhem, the Evil Rescue-Dog Volunteer locked herself into a dog crate and called the police to come get her. Meanwhile, E-Pie-Pie sniffed out his family in a back room, and pawed open the door. Once freed, Super Joni’s husband and daughters gathered around her, tearfully begging her not to die like all those mothers in Disney movies.

  Satisfied with this outpouring of love and attention, Super Joni returned to her senses. Now, more than ever, she understood the value of commitment and what it really meant to be a family. As Super Joni and her family hugged, E-Pie-Pie wreaked havoc and frolicked with all the other bad dogs. Never before, thought Super Joni, had she witnessed anything so heartwarming and hilarious.

  Outside, the royal watchers waved and cheered! Now this, they thought, would make a good story! The End

  In what seemed like an eternity (but in reality was only a few hours), the rescue-dog volunteer emailed me back with good news. The director of the shelter had decided our family could keep Cricket, as she still referred to Eli. Despite my late application, it only made sense. The dog was already settled in our home, so why put him through another transition. I also suspected that the rescue-dog volunteer, who was actually a very nice person, had convinced the director that this particular applicant was in need of rescuing herself.

  So here we were, Eli and me, ready to take on the world. Maybe it was simply the thrill of victory, but I felt happier than I had in months. Was it a coincidence, I wondered, that when I had first started thinking about getting a dog, this was the very one I had envisioned—small and adorable, unwavering in his devotion, and a source of heat for my perpetually cold hands and feet. It was as if I had conjured up Eli from my very own heart, and fate had delivered him to me in the form of electronic messaging.

  “You don’t want a dog,” I remembered my friend at the coffee shop advising me.

  Of course I knew what she had been getting at, though I purposely chose to ignore her real meaning. She had been trying to tell me that it wasn’t a dog I wanted so much as a safeguard against the darker side of mid-life: that waning sense of possibility as your choices diminish and your looks fade; the ache of watching your kids need you less and less; the restlessness that can infect even a good life and marriage, if only because change seems more exciting, and you want it all.

  My friend’s wisdom wasn’t lost on me. I had heard it all before from other reliable sources, and it all made perfect sense. Real happiness comes from within. You can’t rely on anyone else to make you feel good about yourself. You’re only lonely when you don’t like the person you’re alone with.

  Eli watched me from his fleece pillow at my feet. As always, the tip of his pink tongue peeked out from between his lips. Just seeing how cute and happy he looked made me smile.

  I understood how it might seem naïve to think a dog could help someone through a mid-life crisis. And yet, just the fact that Eli loved me so much somehow made me feel more lovable. I also understood that, if there were times in life when I felt like an abyss of need, I couldn’t expect others to fill the void. Still, I thought, picking up Eli and cuddling him in my lap, a little, nine-pound dog with saucer eyes could come pretty close.

  Winning Women

  I had so wanted to look nice.

  I was flying to St. Louis to give two talks—one to a business organization called Winning Women, and one to the Junior Girl Scouts of Southeastern Missouri. The irony of being invited to address women executives and ten-year-old girls who earned badges for community service was not lost on me. I have never been able to hold a job for more than two years, and my last civic duty was glaring at a smoker outside Applebee’s. But I had authored a few books, and this accomplishment obscured a multitude of failings.

  To make up for my lack of suitability as a motivational speaker, not to mention months of neglecting my personal appearance, I was committed to making an effort.

  Most of my effort started twenty-four hours before my flight. I decided to color my fading, yellow hair, partly because it seemed ungracious to fly my graying roots halfway across the country on someone else’s tab, and partly because I wanted to look fifteen years younger.

  Usually when I dye my hair, I choose the medium blond shade of a product called Natural Match. But wasn’t “medium” just another way of saying “average,” a shade for women who not only didn’t win much, but didn’t even like competition and choked at the first sign of it? Yes, that was me, but I didn’t need to advertise it. So I decided to go with a “warmer” blond tone, thinking I would coordinate my hair color with the arrival of summer. Maybe it would even create the illusion of a sunny disposition.

  At first I was hoping it was just bad lighting. But when I looked at my newly dyed hair in the bathroom mirror, and then in every other mirror in the house, and on the visor of our Prius, it was still there—a distinctly brassy hue.

  This was not the kind of brass associated with top military personnel or expensive floor lamps. This was the kind of brass that brought to mind a boy I’ll call Joey Delong, and his dented trumpet. Joe
y Delong was last chair of the brass section in my high school band. Because I was the worst flute player in band, my own chair sat adjacent to Joey’s, our spit-filled embouchures creating a discord of windy toots, blasts, and wrong notes. Plus, Joey Delong was a hoodlum. Once at an away game, he got drunk and threw up in my open flute case.

  I retrieved the discarded box of hair dye from the bathroom trash. There was my mistake, explained on an overlooked three-dollars-off coupon good toward my next purchase of Natural Match. Choose a warmer formula to add RED tones . . . read the copy on the coupon. Oh no, I realized, a second grader could have predicted this disastrous outcome. My pre-existing hair color was yellow. The “warmer” dye added red tones. Yellow plus red equals orange.

  The next part of my effort had to do with my legs. Five long winter months of no exposure to the sun, blast-furnace heat, and being too lazy to moisturize had left my skin the color and texture of moon rock. If I was to expose my calves beneath a skirt without the inconvenience of nylons, I would need a tan. Specifically, a fake tan, which I had purchased in an aerosol can at CVS earlier that day, at the same time I picked up the hair dye.

  Learning from past mistakes, this time I made a point to read the instructions, including the copy on the inserts. Spray the tanning lotion on your palm then quickly and evenly apply it to your skin to avoid streaking. I aimed the can’s pinhole toward my palm. A mound of poo-colored foam peaked in my hand. No time to reconsider, I started rubbing it into my legs.