Serenity Now/A Letter to the Universe

One time someone asked my kids if I had a catchphrase and they did not hesitate to answer in the affirmative. It’s, “Serenity now!” (which I know is also Frank Costanza’s catchphrase, but we actually have a lot in common. For starters, we’re both avid Festivus celebrants). Never in recent memory have I needed serenity more immediately than last Wednesday, when I had a very, very bad day. (Cue that awful “So you had a bad day…” song that kind of gives me a bad day even if I was having a good one. I’m sorry I even mentioned it. Good God it’s in my head now. Serenity now!)

Anyway, here’s how the very bad day broke down. First, I had the bright idea that it would be fun to walk my kids to the bus stop. Four days out of five, Matty drives the kids to school, but he was away on a shoot, and we had one car in the shop (frozen battery from the stretch of subzero temps) and the other was missing a rear view mirror after being sideswiped while parked at bootcamp the day before. (Lesson: never work out.) “Should we take an Uber?” the kids asked, and I scoffed. The sidewalks were a giant sheet of ice thanks to the combo of snow/rain/freezing rain (in that order) that had happened the night before. So when we left borderline late, because we’re always borderline late, and then quickly realized it would be really hard to get there on time on the aforementioned giant sheet of ice, we turned on each other like finalists in a reality show. So I started off the day with two cranky kids, worried I was gonna fall and break my fragile old lady bones on the sidewalk. By some miracle, the kids made it on the bus and I set off on my next big adventure: walking the dogs.

Somehow in the one hour between the bus walk and the dog walk, there were puddles in the street. This would be good news — hey, the ice is melting! — if it weren’t for the jerk-bus that drove through a giant puddle, splashing dirty street water right into my face. I’d say this was the grossest thing that ever happened to me, but that would be a lie because one time I had to pull a long hair out of Rosie’s bum while she was pooping because it had attached the poop to her butt, and another time I was waiting for the train at Downtown Crossing (the dirtiest Boston subway station) and a drop of the brown poop water from the ceiling DRIPPED INTO MY MOUTH. Needless to say, I have been through some literal shit. Speaking of…I was talking to my friend Beth at the time, and before I could even say, “Holy shit, I just got splashed with street water in the face!”, calamity struck again.

Rosie pooped, I went to pick it up with the poop bag, and there was a gross little white worm squiggling around on it. I’m still recovering from the puddle water facial and then there’s this. As I shriek to Beth about the poop worm and WHAT DO I DO? WHAT DO I DOOOO?! She goes, “take a picture!” So I do. (I will spare you from it, dear reader.) Then in mid-crisis, I have to hang up on Beth and call my vet, the kind and handsome Dr. Levine, and ask if I should bring in the bag of worm poop. Then they ask me to describe the worm and I’m like, I’ll do you one better, I will send you a photo! And he’s like, thanks? But we agree that’s the best course of action.

Turns out it’s a tapeworm. And guess how you get a tapeworm? By ingesting fleas. You know, eating fleas. (Quick side story: I was telling this story to my friend Rosa and I said, “you know, like eating fleas!” for emphasis and she goes, “Did you think I didn’t know what ‘ingesting’ means?” And we had a good laugh about that.) So anyway, gross old Rosie not only has fleas, which I thought only happened in cartoons, but has been ingesting (i.e. eating) them. And let’s not forget, I have two dogs, and if one dog has fleas (she can’t eat them all, can she?), probably both dogs have fleas. But suspiciously good-looking Dr. Levine, how could my dogs get fleas when I give them preventative flea/tick medicine every month? Don’t answer that, hot vet, I’ll answer myself. It’s because I forgot to give them their meds last month. How does one forget to give their dogs their monthly meds? Maybe it has something to do with having 476 things to do on a daily basis but it could be for some other reason, I guess we’ll never know.

The vet tech at the alarming attractive Dr. Levine’s office advised me that I would have to give the dogs some expensive medicine (don’t forget this time, dummy!), wash all their bedding in hot water, vacuum everywhere, and give them both a bath. Easy, peasy, right? Well, the dogs have two “places” (cots) with covers, three beds in the toy pit and two in the living room, they’re both terrified of water (and the vacuum), and I have a full time job in addition to de-flea-ing my house. I took all the covers off the dog beds and stacked the uncovered cushions in a pile. While I was washing the covers, Rocky decided to haul his giant flea-ridden body on top of the pile of naked cushions like a malicious cushion-obsessed water buffalo.

Then I had to sweet talk each of them during a strained hand-held sprayer shower (slightly better than bath tub!), which was difficult in different ways: Rocky, because he was so shut down (perhaps from the shame of lying on the naked cushions?) that he wouldn’t even accept a treat, and Rosie, because I felt disingenious calling her a “good girl” in a high-pitched voice, because do good girls ingest fleas? Do they?!

Anyway, we all survived. But stay tuned, because on the same day I give them their flea/tick preventative medicine, I give them their heartworm medicine. Move over, tapeworm, we don’t discriminate against worms in this house!

Okay, I wrote this and then realized it’s neither a letter nor a list (and to think, one time I did a two-in-one!), so I’m cheating and adding a short letter.

Dear Self,
Please come up with a better system for remembering to give the dogs their meds and/or hire a personal assistant to delegate unwanted tasks to, such as: giving your dogs their meds, removing hair from your dogs’ poop and/or butts, dealing with your teenagers’ mood swings, giving your dogs showers, vacuuming, and email management. I realize this post had nothing to do with email management, but you know you need help.
I’m sorry this happened to you. Like Good Will Hunting, it’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.
With affection,
Natasha