Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul (39 page)

One day, I huddled under an awning on St. Mark’s Place with a group of other people who had been surprised without an umbrella by a sudden cloudburst. A scruffy-looking guy, a street person standing in the small crowd, held up a tiny kitten and said, “Anybody give me ten bucks for this cat?”

The kitten was beautiful. She had a fawn underbelly with a chocolate tail and back, and a deeper cocoa mask with pure white whiskers. I was immediately intrigued. But a kitten didn’t fit in my watch-dog scenario. I wrestled with myself internally for a few moments before digging into my purse and scooping out all the cash I had on me— seven dollars and a few coins. I needed a dollar for the subway home, so I said, “Will you take six dollars for her?”

He must have realized that this was his best offer, or else he was so desperate that he just took whatever he could get, because we made the exchange and he left.

I named my new roommate Seal because her whiskers looked like a seal’s. She seemed happy in my small apartment, and I enjoyed her company immensely.

One night, after I’d had Seal for about two years, I woke up in the middle of the night to a loud noise. Loud noises are not unusual in New York, even at 2:00 A.M., so I settled back down and attempted to sleep again. Immediately, Seal jumped on my chest and started stomping on me with all four feet. This was not kneading or playful swatting, and I realized Seal was trying to alert me to something. She jumped off the bed and I followed her. We both crept in the dark toward the kitchen. I watched Seal and when she stopped at the doorway to the kitchen, I stopped too. Keeping her body hidden, she poked her head around the corner of the doorway, and I did the same.

There we saw the figure of a man outlined against the frame of the broken window.

He was in my kitchen.

I refrained from emitting the high-pitched and therefore obviously female scream that was welling in my chest. I made myself inhale an enormous breath. Exhaling, I imagined the opera star, Luciano Pavarotti, and a sound like “WHAAAA” blasted out of me. I think I was planning on saying, “What do you think you are doing?” But I didn’t need to. Even to myself, I sounded like a linebacker, and that guy was out the window and crawling like the human fly along the brick wall of the airshaft outside my kitchen as fast as his burglar legs could carry him.

After that night, I felt more confident about living in New York City. I kept a bat near my bed and practiced grabbing it and using it from every angle I thought might be necessary.

Seal and I became a team. I found myself trusting her more and more. If I heard a noise, I’d look at Seal. If she seemed curious or concerned, I’d investigate it. If not, I’d ignore it too. She became a source of security for me.

Seal is still around. She’s eighteen years old and still spry. I have a bigger place now and I’m toying with getting a German shepherd, but not for protection. Seal and I have that one handled.

Laya Schaetzel-Hawthorne

The Auction

N
ot Carnegie, Vanderbilt and Astor together
could have raised money enough to buy a quarter
share in my little dog . . .

Ernest Thompson Seton

A man and woman I know fell into BIG LOVE somewhat later in life than usual. She was forty. He was fifty. Neither had been married before. But they knew about marriage. They had seen the realities of that sacred state up close among their friends. They determined to overcome as many potential difficulties as possible by working things out in advance.

Prenuptial agreements over money and property were prepared by lawyers. Preemptive counseling over perceived tensions was provided by a psychologist, who helped them commit all practical promises to paper, with full reciprocal tolerance for irrational idiosyncrasies.

“Get married once, do it right, and live at least agreeably, if not happily, ever after.” So they hoped.

One item in their agreement concerned pets and kids. Item number 7:

“We agree to have either children or pets, but not both.”

The man was not enthusiastic about dependent relationships. Kids, dogs, cats, hamsters, goldfish, snakes or any other living thing that had to be fed or watered had never had a place in his life. Not even houseplants. And especially not dogs. She, on the other hand, liked taking care of living things. Especially children and dogs.

Okay. But she had to choose. She chose children. He obliged. Two daughters in three years. Marriage and family life went along quite well for all. Their friends were impressed. So far, so good.

The children reached school age. The mother leapt eagerly into the bottomless pool of educational volunteerism. The school needed funds for art and music. The mother organized a major-league auction to raise much money. Every family agreed to provide an item of substantial value for the event.

The mother knew a lot about dogs. She had raised dogs all her life—the pedigreed champion kind. She planned to use her expertise to shop the various local puppy pounds to find an unnoticed bargain pooch and shape it up for the auction as her contribution. With a small investment, she would make a tenfold profit for the school. And for a couple of days, at least, there would be a dog in the house.

After a month of looking, she found the wonder dog—the dog of great promise. A female, four months old, dark gray, blue eyes, tall, strong, confident and very, very,
very
friendly.

To her practiced eye, our mother could see that classy genes had been accidentally mixed here. Two purebred dogs of the highest caliber had combined to produce this exceptional animal. Most likely a black Labrador and a Weimaraner, she thought. Perfect, just perfect.

To those of us of untutored eye, this mutt looked more like the results of a bad blind date between a Mexican burro and a miniature musk ox.

The fairy dogmother went to work. Dog is inspected and given shots by a vet. Fitted with an elegant leather collar and leash. Equipped with a handsome bowl, a ball and a rawhide bone. Expenses: $50 to the pound, $50 to the vet, $50 to the beauty parlor, $60 for tack and equipment, and $50 for food. A total of $260 on a dog that is going to stay forty-eight hours before auction time.

The father took one look and paled. He smelled smoke. He wouldn’t give ten bucks to keep it an hour. “DOG,” as the father named it, has a long, thick, rubber club of a tail, legs and feet that remind him of hairy toilet plungers, and is already big enough at four months to bowl over the girls and their mother with its unrestrained enthusiasm.

The father knows this is going to be ONE BIG DOG. Something a zoo might display. Omnivorous, it has eaten all its food in one day and has left permanent teeth marks on a chair leg, a leather ottoman and the father’s favorite golf shoes.

The father is patient about all of this.

After all, it is only a temporary arrangement, and for a good cause.

He remembers item number 7 in the prenuptial agreement. He is safe.

On Thursday night, the school affair gets off to a winning start. Big crowd of parents, and many guests who look flush with money. Arty decorations, fine potluck food, a cornucopia of auction items. The mother basks in her triumph.

“DOG” comes on the auction block much earlier than planned. Because the father went out to the car to check on “DOG” and found it methodically eating the leather off the car’s steering wheel, after having crunched holes in the padded dashboard.

After a little wrestling match getting “DOG” into the mother’s arms and up onto the stage, the mother sits in a folding chair, cradling “DOG” with the solemn tenderness reserved for a corpse at a wake, while the auctioneer describes the pedigree of the animal and all the fine effort and neat equipment thrown in with the deal.

“What am I bid for this wonderful animal?”

“A hundred dollars over here; two hundred dollars on the right; two hundred and fifty dollars in the middle.”

There is a sniffle from the mother.

Tears are running down her face.

“DOG” is licking the tears off her cheeks.

In a whisper not really meant for public notice, the mother calls to her husband:
“Jack, Jack, I can’t sell this
dog—I want this dog—this is my dog—she loves me—I love
her—oh, Jack.”

Every eye in the room is on this soapy drama.

The father feels ill, realizing that the great bowling ball of fate is headed down his alley.

“Please, Jack, please, please,”
she whispers.

At that moment, everybody in the room knows who is going to buy the pooch. “DOG” is going home with Jack.

Having no fear now of being stuck themselves, several relieved men set the bidding on fire. “DOG” is going to set an auction record. The repeated hundred-dollar rise in price is matched by the soft
“Please, Jack”
from the stage and Jack’s almost inaudible raise in the bidding, five dollars at a time.

There is a long pause at “Fifteen hundred dollars— going once, going twice . . .”

A sob from the stage.

And for $1,505 Jack has bought himself a dog. Add in the up-front costs, and he’s $1,765 into “DOG.”

The noble father is applauded as his wife rushes from the stage to throw her arms around his neck, while “DOG” wraps the leash around both their legs and down they go into the first row of chairs. A memorable night for the PTA.

I see Jack out being walked by the dog late at night. He’s the only one strong enough to control it, and he hates to have the neighbors see him being dragged along by this, the most expensive damned dog for a hundred miles.

“DOG” has become “Marilyn.” She is big enough to plow with now. Marilyn may be the world’s dumbest dog, having been to obedience school twice with no apparent effect.

Jack is still stunned. He can’t believe this has happened to him.

He had it down on paper. Number 7. Kids or pets, not both.

But the complicating clauses in the fine print of the marriage contract are always unreadable. And always open to revision by forces stronger than a man’s ego. The loveboat always leaks. And marriage is never a done deal.

I say he got off light. It could have been ponies or llamas or potbellied pigs. It would have been something. It always is.

Robert Fulghum

“The bidding will start at eleven million dollars.”

Reprinted by permission of Charles Barsotti.

Sing We Noel

H
appiness is a warm puppy.

Charles Schulz

The year of my tenth birthday marked the first time that our entire family had jobs. Dad had been laid off from his regular employment, but found painting and carpentry work all around town. Mom sewed fancy dresses and baked pies for folks of means, and I worked after school and weekends for Mrs. Brenner, a neighbor who raised cocker spaniels. I loved my job, especially the care and feeding of her frisky litters of puppies. Proudly, I gave my earnings to Mom to help out, but the job was such fun, I would have worked for no pay at all.

I was content during these “hard times” to wear thrift-shop dresses and faded jeans. I waved good-bye to puppies going to fancy homes with no remorse. But all that changed when the Christmas litter arrived in the puppy house. These six would be the last available pups until after Christmas.

As I stepped into the house for their first feeding, my heart flip-flopped. One shiny red puppy with sad brown eyes wagged her tail and bounced forward to greet me.

“Looks as if you have a friend already,” Mrs. Brenner chuckled. “You’ll be in charge of her feedings.”

“Noel,” I whispered, holding the pup close to my heart, sensing instantly that she was special. Each day that followed forged an inexplicable bond between us.

Christmas was approaching, and one night at dinner, I was bubbling over about all of Noel’s special qualities for about the hundredth time.

“Listen, Kiddo.” Dad put down his fork. “Perhaps someday you can have a puppy of your own, but now times are very hard. You know I’ve been laid off at the plant. If it wasn’t for the job I’ve had this month remodeling Mrs. Brenner’s kitchen, I don’t know what we’d do.”

“I know, Dad, I know,” I whispered. I couldn’t bear the pained expression on his face.