MY NEW PET

 After all these years of having all sorts of pets I have FINALLY hit upon the PERFECT pet.  

When my kids were growing up they would always be asking to get a pet.  Usually it was a dog but they soon learned that their father was not an "animal person".  He got that from his mother who would shriek and flinch if anything brushed against her. (That response was not exclusive to pets. She pretty much reacted the same way if one of my children came near her.) Because Husband grew up with this creature hating woman he naturally shared the same lack of affection for creatures of any kind. (I do believe I was included in that group but that's a whole other blog.) 

As a result of this constant bombardment of negative thinking regarding God's small creatures my poor kids were left without a dog for most of their lives. We did manage to adopt several cats throughout the years which only caused my daughter to sneeze, itch and drip gallons of water from her running eyes and nose. (Allergies run strong in my poor girl.)  Husband would regularly mutter about the "Damn Cat" until the cats had had enough and would disappear the first chance they got. 

From felines we moved on to all of the following; 

A small Quaker parrot named Figment who I really enjoyed.  This bird was FUNNY. As soon as you stepped into the house it would start yelling its name over and over until you let it out of its cage.  As soon as the cage door was opened the silly little thing would climb out and make its way down the outside of the cage until it got to the floor. It would then RUN across the floor to the nearest person where it would climb up your leg and torso in order to sit on your shoulder or your head.  I found this tremendously funny but Husband HATED it so naturally the bird's stay with us only lasted a little over a year.  

After Figment came a stream of fish, lizards, frogs and one garter snake name Chuck. (All of these creatures were my youngest son's "pets" (How you can consider a fish or snake a pet is beyond me but we had them anyway.) Funny thing was that my son was actually afraid of the snake so guess who got to feed it and pick it up in order to clean its aquarium. Fun times !

Our very BEST pet until we got the dog was our Guinea Pig named Max.  Max was a "gift" from my BFF Sharon. (Actually it was Sharon's husband Bob who had the brilliant idea to get his 2 boys a Guinea Pig and for what ever reason he bought one for us also. At the time my oldest son was only about 3 and I was pregnant with my daughter.  Great thinking Bob !). But Max the Guinea Pig turned out to be a WONDERFUL pet.  He lived in a dresser drawer that sat on the basement floor.  He never climbed out but when we took him out to play he would scamper around being nosey. He ate carrots out of the kids hands and liked to be picked up and petted.  He lived for about 6 years so I guess he enjoyed his time with us. 

It wasn't until my oldest was in high school, my daughter was in middle school and the youngest was in 5th grade that Husband FINALLY "allowed" us to get a puppy.  It was the perfect storm that got him to consider acquiring a dog.  My daughter was having problems with anxiety and middle school was Hell for her. Husband thought that maybe a dog would help her be less anxious. When we just happened to be in the local pet shop where they had a batch of puppies that needed adopting it wasn't too difficult to get Husband to give in.  That was how we obtained Shadow.  Shadow was a wonderful dog but as usually happens the kids were growing up and leaving home and Husband wanted no part of The Dog so Shadow became MY pet.  Because she was such a great dog I loved having her company. She and I had some great conversations on more than one occasion. She survived for 12 years before she had enough and went to the great dog park in the sky. I always told Husband that when he died I was going to stop at the animal shelter on my way home from the cemetery. I didn't do that so to this day I still do not have a dog or any other pet. 

UNTIL . . .  This past week I realized that I DO have a pet . . . No . . .  Not The Man . . .  even though I do have to feed and walk him. (He actually makes a terrible pet because he refuses to be trained and he NEVER listens.)  Instead I have "Shlurpie".  Shlurpie is my robot vacuum and it is a great pet.  I only realized this last Tuesday when I had the vacuum running around the house picking up what ever it picks up. As I was straightening up the place I found myself having a conversation with the vacuum . . . (I guess that is a little better than talking to myself.). I happened to be in the same room when Shlurpie got stuck under the couch and as it sat there beeping I found myself talking to it, "Hey Shlurpie, how the hell did you get stuck there? You know you can't fit under the couch, you got stuck in the same place last week." 

The conversation continued from there and "we" solved most of the world problems for that day.  I actually enjoyed the conversation because I did not hope for or expect a response which is much more than I ever hope for from The Man.  But at least he doesn't get stuck under the couch. 

SHARING MY BED

 When you are married for 46 years you become quite accustomed to sharing the bed.  Some sleep partners take up more room than others, some make bodily noises, (I leave that to your imagination) and some steal the covers.  A person can become quite accustomed to all of the above and even get to the point of not even being aware of any of this. It is all just part of being sharing your bed with another person. 

BUT . . . I have a problem.  I am used to sharing my bed with The Man, I am used to sharing my bed with the occasional grand child or pet but I do not like sharing my bed with all of the extras that The Man brings to bed with him. I have no problem with the three hundred feet of oxygen hose that is wrapped around him as he sleeps.  He has done a wonderful job of keeping me "tangle free" so that when I wake up in the middle of the night to stagger into the potty I am not caught up in yards of "rope" like a calf in a rodeo event. I am usually awake enough on my mid-night wanderings that I can navigate around the oxygen hose and make it to the bathroom without getting tangled in tubing. 

But when I wake up in the morning and go to make our bed it is like navigating through a mine field. I pull back the top covers and things go flying.  If they aren't being flung across the room when I shake out the sheets I find the assortment of "goodies" laying around IN the bed. In this instance the "goodies" are anything but good.  First I must collect the forty-seven soggy, snotty, crumpled, used tissues. Because The Man is on oxygen 24/7 his nose is constantly running so he is constantly wiping his nose with a tissue.  If I had realized this years ago I would have purchased a massive amount of stock in the Kleenex Company. We go through tissues like a new born goes through diapers.  We buy our tissues by the case so that there is at least one tissue box in every room of our house. Thus when The Man goes to bed he usually has several tissues in hand or on his night stand, all of which end up IN the bed by morning. There are some mornings that I pull back the covers and think that it must have snowed during the night because the sheet is covered in white.  

Once all the tissues are gathered and disposed of I then have to collect the assortment of clickers. THESE are the things that more times than not have gone flying across the room when I pull back the comforter. I am never sure if I will find them on top of the covers or under the covers. It's a guessing game each day.  It is not like there is one clicker either.  NO . . .  we have a minimum of THREE at any given time. The Man has the TV clicker, the "Netflix" clicker and his remote control for the bed.  (We have a wonderful bed that you can raise and lower and make vibrate.)  Both The Man and I have our own remote so if I forget to put mine on the night stand we can wind up with FOUR clickers in the bed. I usually put mine on the night table because I KNOW there is a very good possibility that if I left it in the bed I would roll over onto it during the night. If that happens I find myself being vibrated or elevated to a sitting position. Not a very good way to be woken up from a good sleep.  Because I don't like being woken up I try to make a point of putting the clicker OFF the bed.  Apparently The Man feels differently because he ALWAYS leaves his clicker in the bed so that many a night I am woken up by his side of the bed shaking like an earth quake. Add to that the TV clicker that he also rolls over on to during the night so that not only do I find myself in an earthquake but Fox News is now blasting from the TV.  

Thank goodness we do not eat in bed because I would then be rolling onto dishes and knives and forks. 

And I wonder why I am tired in the morning !