Raphael's Village

Another one of our contributors doing more than 'one thing'. We love that here at Raphael's Village. We also found this piece far too relatable in far too many ways. Enjoy! Humor Editor

Annoyances, by Heather Gregson

Annoyances plague all of our lives. I am no exception. My annoyances happen to be those I share my house with. I do not have any children, a husband, or significant other. At this point in my life, I have a dog and a cat. I truly believe I am a glutton for punishment. Pet owners will understand my pain and suffering.

Many stories have been told about a dog’s devotion and they are true. What those stories don’t tell you are the ordinary everyday aspects of dog ownership. Reggie is my pug. I think he must be pug mixed with bulldog or more likely Brahman bull. I have no doubt that my shoulder will be permanently dislocated before my next birthday. Reggie doesn’t walk per se. He charges headlong to his destination with a determination and strength that would make any sled pulling malamute proud. If I am standing in his way, he has no qualms or trouble putting his head down and bashing me out of his way.

Thanks to Reggie, I have spent countless mornings and evenings outside in the dark, getting soaked by a bone numbing cold rain, waiting for my devoted dog to find the perfect place to pee. Reggie can’t just pee no, he must sniff each milimeter of ground to find the perfect place to relieve himself. Before the arrival of my dog, I had no idea about the complexities invloved in such a mundane and common occurance.

Time passes in a single formula for my canine, breakfast, lunch and dinner. His world is broken down into waiting for each meal and then devouring those meals as if each was the one meal that would ward off imminent starvartion.

During the interminable wait for his next meal, Reggie amuses himself with is favorite pastime, trash barrel surfing. My dear dog will wait for the second my back is turned and then bulldozes the trash barrel over, grazing on whatever he finds inside. He rips the bag to shreds, leaving torn, chewed, drool-covered pieces of plastic strewn cross the kitchen. Frozen food packages are sniffed, licked, chewed and discarded. Eggshells are stomped and mashed into a slimy paste. Coffee filters are shaken with a frenzied gusto that sprays coffee grounds over every conceivable kitchen surface. He does this when I leave the house, when I take a shower, even during the brief moment I step out onto the porch to get the mail. It is a thump, distinct from any other sound I know.

Reggie is a good-natured affectionate dog who shows no aggression with my cat. My cat on the other hand shows no affection with anyone and seems to suffer the indignity of having to live with two lower life forms.

My feline companion is a male tuxedo cat named Pest. He is so named, because he is one-plain and simple. I have no doubt that I am not alone in spending endless hours praying in the cat food aisle of the supermarket. The food that my cat devoured last week with hearty gusto, he refuses to even sniff with disdain this week. Pest has decided that the best way to express his hunger is in an endless cacophony of wailing meows.

He expresses his boredom, his need for a nap, his waking from a nap, his happiness, his unhappiness and every other feeling he has in this way.

Many cat owners know the gacking sound that precedes a bout of hairball spewing. My cat has the decency to give me fair warning of the impending hairball so I can hold a newspaper circular under his head and thus avoid said hairball landing on my clean carpet. As the hairball arrives in it’s slimy spewing glory, only my cat would turn his head, avoid the circular and with expert marksmanship hurl the hairball onto my carpet. To complete the carpet violation he shakes barf spit on the areas he didn’t spew on.

His front paws are not paws, they are deadly spring loaded weapons armed with piercing, dagger like hypodermic claws that he imbeds in my leg whenever he feels the need to stretch. People think I love the heat because I wear jeans in the summer. Not true, I wear them out of self-preservation. Heat stroke is preferable to daily impalings. I have been offered well-meaning advice by non cat owners to have my cat declawed. Only a person who has never owned a cat and is ignorant of their ways could offer this advice. Cats who have been declawed are meaner than cats with claws. A vindictive nocturnal predator with a bad attitude and four vampire fangs is not something I want in my house, especially when I am sleeping.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love my pets, but on more than one occasion, I have longed for time off from my domestic companions. My sister and her husband provided me such an opportunity. She called and asked if I wouldn’t mind watching their three-year-old-daughter for the weekend when they went to visit her in-laws. A weekend off from my pets, a weekend not spent standing outside before the sun even rises, waiting for my dog to do his business. A weekend spent in blissful silence, far removed from my cat’s constant vocal exertions.

I jumped at the chance.

I packed my bags, boarded my pets in a kennel and drove to my sister’s house. I was excited about spending the weekend with my niece, Jennifer. I was watching her grow up via e-mailed pictures and DVD videos and relished the idea of us being together for a whole weekend.

As I bade my sister and brother-in-law good-bye, my niece looked up at me and smiled. She had a petite, sweet face and I just knew this would be a good weekend. I asked her what she wanted for lunch, and she instantly informed me that her mommy let her have cookies for lunch. Knowing that all kids try this with the babysitter, I smiled and made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. What I wasn’t prepared for, was my niece’s penchant for dancing through her meal, and I do mean dancing. She stood on the chair and danced while she ate. Her legs fllailed from side to side, while her head jerked back and forth with such reckless abandon, she would have made any veteran mosh pitter proud. Peanut butter and jelly flew further and covered more surfaces than Reggie’s coffee grounds ever had.

I decided after her meal, to take her to the park to play. She wanted to roller skate to the park. I vetoed the idea and was rewarded with a temper tanturm that I do believe halted the world’s rotation. This happy, smiling child became a whirling dervish of tears, pouts, screaming and crying. Toys, clothes and childhood trinkets began to fly in every direction as arms and legs thrashed wilder than a crocodile doing a death roll. Jennifer did more damage than a passing tornado. To placate her and save my sanity, I offered a compromise. She could ride her tricycle to the park. In an instant, this miniture screaming banshee, stopped her crying and skipped off to her tricycle.

I’m sure I hadn’t even closed my eyes that night, when I was jolted out of bed a sound not of this earth. Jennifer charged into my room and launched herself onto my chest. She let loose a shriek of joy that was beyond any decible level I had ever heard. This was the shriek monster’s way of greeting the day. I was firmly convinced that at any moment the phone was going to ring and the Department of Defense or Pentagon would be on the other end, asking for the sonic weapon I had unleashed-a weapon that could clearly cripple an entire enemy army with an ear shattering sonic wave.

The rest of the weekend passed in a blur of moving child, banging piano, singing of the same one line over and over, dancing and weapon grade shrieks. There is no scientific explantion how something so small can be so horrifyingly loud. Over-caffeinated sprinters move slower than this perpetual motion machine. The echo of running feet pounded through my brain. In the all too rare moments of quiet I never wondered where my niece was, I just followed the ever-present trail of crumbs.

I was exhausted, elated and somewhat deaf, when my sister and her husband pulled into the driveway.

I arrived at the kennel and was greeted by my two fur covered companions as if I were royalty. Now safe at home my cat expressed his displeasure with his recent incarceration by an endless barrage of wailing meows. No sooner had I sat down but the comforting “thump” of my trash barrel being assailed, assaulted and knocked to the ground, reached my sore ears. I dropped to my knees and thanked every god of every known religion that I was home and peaceful normalcy had returned to my life.

Annoyances? No, I never said my pets were annoying. You must have heard me wrong.