My dog licks my wood floor. Let me give you a little background on my dog. My dog is 13 years old. She is a golden retriever/ lab mix. She is mine and Tom’s first child…even though she is technically 91 years old now. Anyway, Murphy, my dog, is “special”. She flunked out of her first attempt at Obedience School. This is not entirely Murphy’s fault. I blame this unfortunate occurrence on the fluffy poodle next to us who deliberately distracted Murphy prior to the “sit” command testing. Fluffy poodle didn’t get scolded but Murphy did. Gotta watch out for those poodles. Don’t turn your back on them for a second because it can truly mean the difference between Valedictorian and Rubber Chew Toy Tester #6. Anyway, I think this unfortunate occurrence really had a negative impact on Murphy, and she just wasn’t the same after that. A wounded spirit. Who am I kidding? She was never quite normal. Megan once told my parents that Murphy needed to go see the Wizard about a brain. Enough said.
Now I like a neat house, but I am by no means a “neat freak.” I do what I have to do to get the house clean, and I pray that I don’t have to repeat the process for a week. So when I do take the time and energy to clean my house, I don’t want anyone walking behind me and undoing what I have just spent valuable time on when I could have been sitting in my indention on the sofa learning about cornice boards and the risks involved in painting a room bright red.
Every week I sweep my wood floors. I then get out this ridiculous floor mop which is just a towel with elastic around the edges that wraps around a big plastic rectangle. It’s supposed to clean my floor better then a traditional mop. Someone is making a ton of money off of gullible people like me who saw this contraption in the store and thought, “I must have this. It will surely give my floors that natural glow.” Right. So I spray the floor cleaner on the floors and then kill my arms and back trying to push this stupid “mop” across the cleaner to clean the floor. It slides about as good as the grocery cart that you always manage to find with one bent wheel. You know the one that seems fine until you are half way through your shopping with a cart full of groceries and then suddenly the wheel goes sideways and you’re left with no other choice then to finish your remaining shopping forcing a cart to go straight when it really only wants to go to the right. I digress, that is a whole other story. The alternative to my ridiculous contraption is to spray the cleaner on the floor and then get down on my hands and knees and wipe the floor with a towel. I’m no Cinderella so we’ll stick with the ridiculous contraption.
After a half hour of this torture, I am finished and I survey the room with a sense of extreme accomplishment and throbbing biceps. At least I am one step closer to being ready for strappy tops this summer. I collect my cleaning tools and head to the laundry room to put everything away hoping I have not missed the exciting documentary on the history of Twinkies. As I walk back towards the kitchen, I hear, “clink, clink.” This sound is like nails on a chalkboard for me, like the phone ringing after getting a colicky baby to sleep, like the word “Mom” when you’re crouched in your closet trying to have a conversation on the phone. It is simply put maddening. It is Murphy’s ID tags clinking together as she is running her enormously large tongue across my newly cleaned floor and leaving a trail of dog slobber in her wake.
What I don’t understand is that she has a normal size tongue any other time. But when she is doggy slobbering my newly cleaned wood floor, her tongue appears to have lengthened by a foot and widened by five feet. She becomes a Zambonie on my kitchen floor! Furthermore, this 91 year old dog suddenly has the pep of a puppy as she turbo charges the circumference of my kitchen and eating area.
“Murphy, Stop!”
Why do I yell? She can’t hear anything other then the sound of food hitting her dog bowl. This is an ongoing battle between Murphy and me. What is it that tastes so great on the floor after I clean it? Does the floor cleaner taste good? I don’t know. I can’t say that I have ever been so inclined to give it a try. Given a choice between water, coffee, wine, martini, floor cleaner, well, what would you choose? Yes, it is a battle between housewife and beast. She is 91. She is “special”. She never made it to see the Wizard, so I think you know how this is going to end. The bottom line is that I couldn’t teach her the “sit” command when she was 1 so I probably am not going to teach her the “no slobber on my floor” command when she is 13. Zambonie away, Murphy. At least in these hard economic times we are keeping the floor cleaner company in business. Oh and I have the added bonus of a good upper body workout.
Now I like a neat house, but I am by no means a “neat freak.” I do what I have to do to get the house clean, and I pray that I don’t have to repeat the process for a week. So when I do take the time and energy to clean my house, I don’t want anyone walking behind me and undoing what I have just spent valuable time on when I could have been sitting in my indention on the sofa learning about cornice boards and the risks involved in painting a room bright red.
Every week I sweep my wood floors. I then get out this ridiculous floor mop which is just a towel with elastic around the edges that wraps around a big plastic rectangle. It’s supposed to clean my floor better then a traditional mop. Someone is making a ton of money off of gullible people like me who saw this contraption in the store and thought, “I must have this. It will surely give my floors that natural glow.” Right. So I spray the floor cleaner on the floors and then kill my arms and back trying to push this stupid “mop” across the cleaner to clean the floor. It slides about as good as the grocery cart that you always manage to find with one bent wheel. You know the one that seems fine until you are half way through your shopping with a cart full of groceries and then suddenly the wheel goes sideways and you’re left with no other choice then to finish your remaining shopping forcing a cart to go straight when it really only wants to go to the right. I digress, that is a whole other story. The alternative to my ridiculous contraption is to spray the cleaner on the floor and then get down on my hands and knees and wipe the floor with a towel. I’m no Cinderella so we’ll stick with the ridiculous contraption.
After a half hour of this torture, I am finished and I survey the room with a sense of extreme accomplishment and throbbing biceps. At least I am one step closer to being ready for strappy tops this summer. I collect my cleaning tools and head to the laundry room to put everything away hoping I have not missed the exciting documentary on the history of Twinkies. As I walk back towards the kitchen, I hear, “clink, clink.” This sound is like nails on a chalkboard for me, like the phone ringing after getting a colicky baby to sleep, like the word “Mom” when you’re crouched in your closet trying to have a conversation on the phone. It is simply put maddening. It is Murphy’s ID tags clinking together as she is running her enormously large tongue across my newly cleaned floor and leaving a trail of dog slobber in her wake.
What I don’t understand is that she has a normal size tongue any other time. But when she is doggy slobbering my newly cleaned wood floor, her tongue appears to have lengthened by a foot and widened by five feet. She becomes a Zambonie on my kitchen floor! Furthermore, this 91 year old dog suddenly has the pep of a puppy as she turbo charges the circumference of my kitchen and eating area.
“Murphy, Stop!”
Why do I yell? She can’t hear anything other then the sound of food hitting her dog bowl. This is an ongoing battle between Murphy and me. What is it that tastes so great on the floor after I clean it? Does the floor cleaner taste good? I don’t know. I can’t say that I have ever been so inclined to give it a try. Given a choice between water, coffee, wine, martini, floor cleaner, well, what would you choose? Yes, it is a battle between housewife and beast. She is 91. She is “special”. She never made it to see the Wizard, so I think you know how this is going to end. The bottom line is that I couldn’t teach her the “sit” command when she was 1 so I probably am not going to teach her the “no slobber on my floor” command when she is 13. Zambonie away, Murphy. At least in these hard economic times we are keeping the floor cleaner company in business. Oh and I have the added bonus of a good upper body workout.
this is great stuff! keep it up, can't wait for next one........
ReplyDelete