Where Have All the Clean (Big) Sheets Gone?

There’s a fine line between being completely reasonable and Tom Hanks-like, and going all Joan Crawford screaming about wire clothes hangers. I think I’m about to cross it.

About bed linens.

I like to think of myself as a pretty reasonable person. (Okay, maybe not about the current occupant of 1600) Or that’s the way I used be.

When it comes to big issues like familial cancer, friends nearly dying and mortality I’m pretty solid. I deal, okay, compartmentalize, and function appropriately. I don't panic and can be counted on in a crisis.

It’s the little things that are going to lead me to walk in front of a bus. Like sheets.

This is a first world problem. I am well aware of how lucky I am to have small problems

Still.

Since Mom’s permanent home is in the Berkshires of New England, where as of mid-March it is still snowing, she spends the winter with me in Los Angeles. Mom is mobility challenged, which is medical-speak for the fact that she is confined to a wheelchair.

Mom’s pretty easy; she has a good sense of humor and deals with her disability much better than I would. The problem really isn't her.

The thing is these days Mom comes with a series of aides. Don't get me wrong. I am completely grateful to them. The ladies are pleasant, kind and put up with Mom, me, four obnoxious dogs and they rarely complain. Neither Mom nor I could function without them. We are blessed.

But.

I’m used to living by myself. At least as alone as one can be when you live with Great Danes, Brittanys and keep horses in the back yard.

Living alone is good. I can nap without feeling guilty. I can put stuff down and it stays there until I move it. I can watch really shitty television without being judged and I don’t have to slink out to my office to listen to music loud. Oh, and I can cuss a lot. 

After four months I’m getting used to some things like sharing my tiny space and all of the associated inconveniences. I dare say I’m even pretty good about it, though I miss swearing. 

What is going to break me are sheets. There, I said it again. Sheets.

It seems so simple, even logical to me. Mom’s room has a queen sized bed with a brand-new mattress. (Because the Danes ate the old one…) In her closet are shelves with sheets. Queen-sized sheets. For her bed.

In the hall is a linen closet. With towels and sheets for my king-sized bed. (Don’t be like that – I share that bed with Great Danes.) While my sheets fit Mom’s bed, hers do not work on mine. There are a three sets of sheets for each bed, with a few extras including blankets and pillows.

So how come last night I ended up wrapped in a one dog blanket and a horse cooler I won many years ago?

I am not exactly suffering, though my feet did get a little chilly around 2AM. But the missing sheets are driving me crazy and making me a bit cranky. Especially since it’s been raining, which means that the dogs make the bed filthy and I’d like to put on clean sheets.

Okay I'm really cranky. Like insanely crazy

I just hope that when you spot me wandering the streets of Chatsworth barefoot and clutching a torn, dirty sheet and screaming "WHERE DID ALL THE SHEETS GO?, " you will understand. Or at least point me towards Bed, Bath & Beyond and hand me a 20 % off coupon.

Emotional Support Animal Or Cheap Passengers?

 

   I think the tipping point was Dexter the Peacock. His owner, a photographer and questionable ‘performance artist,’ claimed Dexter was an emotional support animal when she tried to board a flight with him perched on her shoulder.

     I have nothing against peacocks; in fact I was incredibly excited when a pair of wild juveniles hunkered down at my place before deciding my ranchette was too crazy for them, and moved on. But as emotional support?   

    The shrieks of peacocks are the antithesis of soothing or calming. They sound like a cat being attacked by a coyote. At about 90 dbs.

     Dexter’s owner is far from the only one pushing the ESA envelope. Everyone who has boarded a plane over the last few years has seen ESA offenders. They are the miserable-looking dogs being dragged around by self-entitled women who are too cheap to pay the fee for taking their dogs on board.

     In addition to the unhappy dogs, the owners are usually surrounded by Gucci rollerboards and a condescending attitude. They DARE you to challenge their disability, because they are married to a lawyer. And they will call him RIGHT NOW.

     Things have changed since when I moved to Los Angeles, and flew carrying a goldfish. In a bag inside a bowl.  Herbie was the hit of the flight; little kids kept running up to take a peak at the flying fish. Most were disappointed that he was just a goldfish, I’m sure they were hoping for something more exotic.  Herbie, by the way, was an excellent passenger, though I never took him anywhere again.

     Obviously, even if Herbie were still alive, (he passed at the age of 10 and was buried under a rosebush), we’d never get on a plane. His bowl was far too big to get through TSA.

     The Dexter incident is unfortunate for everyone who travels with an actual, legitimate, support animal. Like Monty.

     My 87 year-old handicapped mother lives with me six months a year. She travels across country, bringing a couple of checked bags and Monty, her 13 year-old Silky Terrier. 

     The first few years, when Mom was healthier, we gladly paid the $125 to bring Monty on board. We shoved him in his crate and stuck him underneath the seat in front of me (or whomever was accompanying Mom.) Once we were airborne, we’d plop the crate on the companion’s lap. Monty would sleep and Mom could see he was fine. All was good. He didn’t bother anyone and life was good.

     Until it wasn’t. Two years ago, Mom and I checked into first class (thank goodness for that Delta AMEX card) and proceeded as usual. When everyone else opened their laptops, I took Monty out.

The flight attendant  had a fit.  She hissed and spat like a cat in a bathtub.

      “Put that ANIMAL on the floor.”

     It took me a moment to realize that she was referring to the snoring little dog on my lap. But I followed instructions, and soon Monty was whimpering softly and my mother was whining loudly. I put the carrier on my lap, and opened the top so Mom could reach in and touch him.

       The animal police arrived immediately and started screeching like a peacock.

    “Put that CREATURE on the floor. It is upsetting people!”

     There was no one sitting next to us and the folks across the aisle people were sleeping, or had been, until the stew lost it at the top of her lungs.

     “It needs to be moved immediately!” She hovered over me until I did so. I spent the rest of the flight bent over Monty with one hand slipped into his crate to pat his head. For a week I walked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

        I don’t want to damn all Delta stewardesses. Far from it. A few years later I was taking my seven-week-old Great Dane puppy home from Kentucky. Jasper Johns was booked and paid for as my carry-on. I got to my seat and discovered I had been moved to the bulkhead, and there was no place to put him. In a panic I pointed it out to my seat companion and the stewardess.

        The flight attendant looked at me like I was crazy. 

     “He looks like a support animal to me. What do you think?” She looked at my aisle mate, who nodded enthusiastically.  For the entire flight, he, and everyone in my row kept asking if I needed them to hold Jasper so I could go to the restroom.

        The earlier Monty incident spooked me. Now when Mom travels, Monty carries ESA identification. He has letters from two of Mom’s doctors, a photo ID and a badge. He has more documentation than I do. His picture is better too.

         The thing is, neither Mom nor I want to be one THOSE people, you know, the cheaters. We'd happily pay for Monty's travels. Truth be told, we aren’t lying about his ESA status. Moving Mom coast-to-coast is difficult and stressful and anxiety-producing. Knowing Monty is there, and safe, is calming.

     I’m not sure though, whose emotions he is supporting on these trips, Moms or mine.

               

               

The Curse of the Pigglesworth

I despise Walmart. I hate their business model, which drives vendors to near bankruptcy and kills locally-owned small business. I hate their gigantic stores which swallow up acres of once open land that. I hate the way their treat their employees, most of whom are part-time so they won’t have benefits and are depend upon food stamps for survival. I hate the politics of the Walton family, who support the GOP with fistfuls of money.

I mostly hate Walmart because it has made me a hypocrite.

Because of my aforementioned revulsion, until recently I had never set foot in a Walmart. Or a Sam’s Club. I was  smugly proud of this.

But then I discovered Pigglesworths.

For those of you who do not have Great Danes, I will let you in on a secret: these are must-have Great Dane toys.

.

Pigglesworths seem simple. They are rubber toys in the shape of pigs that make a disgusting grunt instead of a more plebeian squeak. The pigs come in bright colors including lime green, orange, purple and pink and have contrasting spots.

 It shouldn’t be a big deal. Pigglesworths are just dog toys after all.

Not exactly.

I kept hearing about these pigs on every Great Dane page.  Danes apparently adore these toys. Not like, but adored. Every Dane worth his slobber has at least one. Or 40.

Did I mention, they are cheap?  That means when the noses are chomped off, the stuffing extracted and grunter ripped out, you can get another without breaking the bank.

Dane Facebook pages are filled with dogs posing with piles of nose-less, silent piggies.  The lack of stuffing and noise doesn’t seem to dim  the dogs’ enthusiasm at all.

Pigglesworths could just be the perfect dog toy.

My dogs are just a wee bit spoiled. They literally have toy boxes filled with dead stuffies and other toys. Hedgehog? Check. Rope toys? Check. Flamingos? Check. 

(They have no Teddy Bears . For some reason, most of my Teddys arrived wearing clothing.  Murray the Dane, being a practical dog, found this simply wrong. Bears, unless their first name is Yogi, shouldn’t have clothing. Which meant that he constantly undressed the Teddy Bears. I found this disturbing, and removed them. Murray has been gone for years but I’ve never replaced the Teddys. )

But I had no Pigglesworths. Zero. Obviously I needed to rectify this problem.

So off I went in search of the mysterious, nay, legendary grunting pigs. 

I admit, I was naive. First I went to independent pet stores. No hogs. I went to Petco and Petsmart. Nary a porcine to be found. 

Every time I passed a pet store, I went inside. Pigglesworths had become my quest. My Holy Grail was a rubber florescent colored swine. And there was only one place they could be dependably found in the United States.*

Which is how I found myself in the parking lot of the local Walmart. I sat in the car for almost a half an hour, trying to figure out what the offset for shopping there would be. Do I go to a local pet shop and buy a ton of overpriced chew toys to make up for my Walmart sins? Maybe a donation to a local animal shelter would absolve me.

Finally, I took a deep breath and went into the store. It was every bit as awful as I imagined.

I dislike shopping but I truly hate shopping in big box stores; they overwhelm me. Usually I get dizzy and walk out empty handed. But even Costco (which treats its employees AND vendors well) had not prepared me for this.

My head started to spin. The store was immense and was filled with goods I had never thought of, and probably no one needs.  Items were piled to the rafters and wrapped in shiny plastic.

I had the urge to bolt, but because of my rotten, spoiled, dogs, I pushed on. Somewhere in this godforsaken place there were Pigglesworths. I would find them and purchase them if it was the last thing I did.

For a moment it seemed like it might. I immediately got lost in the children’s clothing and baby supplies. Next I came upon the medical department, which went on forever. By the time I found the pet aisle, I was lightheaded.

There, near the floor, in a dusty bin, were Pigglesworths. Once I spotted them, they practically glowed. I grabbed two of every color, in the hopes that the pig supply would outlive the dogs. As everyone likes to remind me, Great Danes don’t live long, so there was a chance.

My arms full of pigs, I ran to the checkout. There were hundreds of people in line. Many had dozens of children and overflowing carts filled with life’s necessities.  A few stared at me and my arms filled with colorful pigs.

Yes, they were judging me. I didn't care. I had my loot.

Eventually I made it outside. I took a deep breath. The air smelled a little off, but that could have been because the Walmart was in Porter Ranch, during the gigantic Aliso Canyon natural gas leak. Or that just could have been the smell of Walmart.

 I didn’t care, I was just glad to be outside. With the pigs.

When I got home, I was surrounded by Danes.  Excitedly I took out a Pigglesworth for each dog and presented them with a flourish.

Nothing. Nada. They barely blinked.

Dalai finally politely nosed one and walked away, bored. Poppy the Brittany was interested and poked it. When it grunted she leapt back in terror and took off.

Finally, Jasper crept up on a green piggie from behind. He grabbed it by the head and took off grunting it while running circles of joy. 

Success! He LOVED his Pigglesworth.

It was always nearby. He even took it to bed, so if either of us rolled over in the middle of the night, we were startled awake by grunts.

Unfortunately, I discovered that since they are cheap rubber, Pigglesworths do not, in fact, last forever. In less time than you can imagine, the noses were gnawed off, and the stuffing yanked out, leaving dozens of husks of colorful rubber.  I’ve taken to impaling them on fence posts, like heads of pagans in the Middle Ages.

Lately Jasper has been standing in front of the fence, sadly whining. Which means one thing.

So help me, I need to go back to Walmart.

*Pigglesworths are available online. From China. Between the cost and the shipping they average about $15 a pig. If they are in stock. Which they never are. I’ve checked. Honest.