The Whisker

My dog just came galloping down the hallway into the TV room at a frenzied pace. This can only mean one thing. She has been up to no good. In the past, this devil -is-after-me sprint into the room to look at us with an "I'm innocent" look, means that someone has been very, very naughty and has just emerged from the forbidden rooms.

The forbidden rooms are our bedroom, the dressing room, and the I-need-my-private-space room which my husband uses to smoke cigars. Usually she has snuck into the first two, which are mostly my domain. She likes my shoes. I have found her on more than one occasion making out with an innocent slipper caught in a loving embrace, saliva everywhere.

"What are you doing???" I would yell.
And then I would melt almost instantly because of the "what do you mean?" look on her face, like I just accused her of something ridiculous.

I'm telling you before I had Whisker, I would've laughed at people who describe their pet's facial expressions. But damn it, I tell you, this dog has an expressive face. Her speciality faces are the "forgive me" face and the "I'm sad you were away all day" face. I love her to bits. She's testing all my preconceived notions of how I was going to raise kids.

My husband and I are worried that we will not love our children like we love this dog. I'm so worried about this, that I want to get pregnant, just to prove us wrong.

Contrary to all my proclamations of what I would and wouldn't do if that were my child, while witnessing mothers trying to control children in supermarket aisles, I've become the soft mother.

I would bribe her with dorito crumbs so she will love me more than my husband. I would break the forbidden room rule, if she sits at the door when we go to bed, with her toy bone in her mouth wanting to play fetch. I would even wait outside the kitchen after I finally get her to go to bed, listening for her footsteps incase she was going to follow me back for the 5th time. And when she doesn't, I'm almost heartbroken, even though I've ordered her firmly to go to sleep.

Wa3alaaaaaya...7abeeeeebty. My mother, who doesn't like dogs, is constantly asking about her and dropping by to visit her. "How is Skewer??" she asked the other day.

"Mama, her name is Whisker.." It's okay, it's the thought that counts.

Anyway, back to the present moment. After she came running into the room breathless, like she was being chased by a banshee, I asked my hubby if he left the bedroom door open.

Blink blink, "forgive me" face.

He has learned that look from Skewer...I mean Whisker. I walk to the bedroom and find the door ajar, like a few inches ajar. Like a hamster couldn't make it through, ajar. But somehow the pekingese houdini slipped through. Inside the room, everything looks in place...except...

There is a slight ruffling of the shoe army I have told you about before, and lo and behold on the bed is a lone pair of my black gem-studded slippers. It has been chewed upon profusely. A confused series of miniature footprints surround Exhibit A and a tuft of hair from the only redhead in the house. "WHISKER!!!!!!"

I walk slowly back into the living room, expecting to find her in the usual spot, after her crime has been discovered. She's on the sofa, peering at me behind Nayef's leg, like he's her Embassy, and I can't go there to arrest her. She is looking at me, as I walk in and as I go to sit on the sofa. She is waiting for her 'telling-off'. But I use the guilt technique that parents use sometimes to confuse their kids. I say nothing.

I swear to you, she sat there staring at me for about five minutes, until I walked over to her held her face and told her that she was a little devil.

"Naughty Girl!"
(But I'm cute) said her face.

Oh God, I know she's adorable. Earlier today I had bought her a fuchsia and grey stripey sweater which she wore with such pride. She looked like Cindy Lauper in one of those baggy t-shirts from the 80's.

After that, she felt better, smiled at me (Yes, she smiles) and trotted off happily to her small cushion bed and fell asleep, exhausted from all the fetching, food begging, sweater-wearing and shoe-licking.

After all...Girls just wanna have fun...