Slice of Life Story

There's been a bad smell following me around the house for several weeks, and it is always accompanied by the clitter clatter of nails on hardwood floors. My dog, Thisbe, needs a bath and I seem to have lost the battle of wills against my husband, meaning I am going to have to do it. So, I quietly tiptoe up to the bathroom and start the water. Thisbe is in her usual place on the upstairs sofa oblivious to the traumatic experience just around the corner. She starts to shake the minute I lift her. The shaking continues all through bath time. When wet, she resembles a drowned weasel and her eyes become brown pools of endless suffering and sorrow. Her tail, normally so perky, limply curls under her. Her once fluffy beard hangs like torn curtains.

Thisbe is not happy.

I lift her up and shake her a little to get rid of some of the water. She stares in to my eyes with a look of resigned humiliation. Et tu, brute?

Now comes the fun part. Once the bath is over, Thisbe and I perform a sort of modern dance with towels. She is bent on shaking herself to the point that my bathroom walls become covered in a thin layer of wet hair. I am determined that she will not. So begins our duet. Thisbe is a caped assassin, slipping through my legs and making for the door. I am the clumsy pursuer, pirouetting on wet linoleum.

Finally I judge it safe to release her, and Thisbe emerges from her cocoon of towels with a mischievous glint in her now sparkling eyes. All is forgiven. I am loved again. Game on. She hurtles down the stairs almost taking out my daughter who turns and follows, whooping with joy. Thisbe rounds the corner in to the dining room with the grace of a thoroughbred and dashes in to the kitchen, does a 180 degree turn in mid air and exits the kitchen, rocketing past me and leaps from one rug to another in her sprint to the living room. Three times she does this circuit, followed closely by my amused eight year old, who has been part of this running of the bulls since she could toddle.

Finally, Thisbe is ready for one on one combat. I crouch low and appease my sin by being gently nipped by the damp smelling hairball that is my dog. The hand to jaw fight could last for ever, so I signal my surrender by prostrating myself at her paws. Not yet satisfied that I have paid dearly enough for my betrayal, Thisbe turns her back to me. Scratch it and we'll call it quits.

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