Dog Love 2

There is a joke that goes like this: What does a dyslectic insomniac atheist do in the middle of the night? Answer: Lies awake and thinks about dog.

That's me! ... Minus the dyslexia.

As you might guess, I have little patience for dogs and their people. I know that this condition might get me kicked out of civilized society, but I can’t help myself.

So here it is: Dogs are a total pain. And so are their people. No matter how much I love my dog-enchanted friends, I don't know why they think that they can inflict their dog-love on me. And by dog-love I mean their love for dogs, not their dogs’ love for me which is usually expressed by jumping on me and licking my exposed body parts. Besides, I don't inflict my Korean wannabe daughter on them, so why do I have to pretend that I am enchanted by their dogs?

As I have stated before, I don't hate dogs. I am just indifferent to them. I know that they can wiggle their tails and make a person feel loved when she thinks that the entire world hates her. That's certainly a blessing. It always helps to have someone loving you when you look like crap, feel like a zombie, and want to rid the world of several people who crossed your path that day.

But I promise you that no amount of dog slobber will ever make me feel loved, no matter how awful I was feeling before that tongue came into contact with my face. And what is it with dogs' tongues? I mean, everyone knows where those tongues spend a good deal of their time. So why would I want them to touch my person?

Because that's the price I have to pay so my friends will tolerate me, the human.

Last weekend I spent an afternoon with a dear friend, who brought along her two precious labs to play with a tennis ball at an open space overlooking the ocean. It was a beautiful afternoon, soaked in soft sunlight and a light sea breeze. I stood by her side and watched as her two excited-beyond-control chubby labs chased a decrepit tennis ball she threw for them, again and again and again and again, ad nauseam. No matter how many times she threw the ball, those two bolted after it, sometimes completely missing it, even though it landed right in front of them, sometimes returning from their quest with that ball in their mouths and such victorious smiles on their faces, you’d think they discovered the Higgs Boson Particle in the low grass.

This fantastic spectacle seemed beyond bizarre to me. Here I was, an educated woman with books to read, food to cook, laundry to fold, a Korean wannabe daughter to call, and blogs to write, standing on a patch of grass overlooking a beautiful bay, watching two panting dogs breathlessly chasing a ball covered in white, slimy, sticky saliva as if it were the Holy Grail. And my dear friend, the human, swinging a long plastic ladle-looking thingy—which dog people use to fling balls without having to bend down every time the ball is brought back to them by their breathless besties—perpetually in awe of the miracle of Dog Brings Ball Back.

Only my dog-like loyalty to my friend kept me from walking away. Until she started getting too close to me with that dog-saliva-smothered long spoon thingy. You should have seen my face. The horror! And she thought it was funny.

Well, dog people, it's time to wake up and smell the coffee, or more accurately, your dogs’ breath. Whether you brush their teeth with a special dog tooth brush or not. Me—innocent, unassuming human specimen; them—huge pink dog tongues splattering long strings of saliva; we don’t need to get too cozy. I'm perfectly comfortable in my human skin cover and happy to keep myself as dry as humanly possible when I am in the company of dogs’ drool and their saliva smothered tennis balls.