X: In Which I Pander to Current Trends in Publishing

I admit it. In my fantasies, The Reluctant Bachelor morphs Pinocchio-like from a blog to a book, I make a kajillion dollars in book sales, the book is optioned for an equally successful movie in which Buddy Hackett returns from the dead to portray me (Hackett has always been my stock answer to the surprisingly frequently asked question "Who would you want to play you in the movie of your life?" and given the absurdity of the question's premise I see no reason to move off my position simply because Hackett is deceased), and I retire to a golf course. Don't tell me I'm not ambitious.

These days it seems everyone is writing a best seller about his or her--usually his--dog. I haven't read any of these books, but I've read about and around them enough to glean that they typically recount how a dog miraculously, unexpectedly, and at exactly the right moment changed the author's life. The dog may be incredibly smart, like Peabody; heroic, like Tippy the Wonder Dog; or just flat-out annoying, like Scrappy Doo; but in the end, the author learns A Valuable Lesson From a Most Unlikely Source. (My gut instinct, for what it's worth, is that men tend to be the authors of these books because the relationship between human and dog is about as complicated an emotional bond as most men can handle or understand. Men would write books about the women who have changed their lives, but the truth is that the subject is simply too complex for us. It's as though those changes occur on a frequency we can't hear. Maybe our dogs can hear it? This is a line of inquiry worth pursuing, perhaps. When my book is sold, I will set my assistant on the task, right after she makes my tee time.)

As luck would have it, I am a man in possession of two dogs. When I was a married man, my wife did the heavy lifting in this area and so I was in no position to write about the canines, as our interactions were as infrequent and impersonal as the hallway passings of boarding house residents on their way to and from the bathroom. But for the last five months--since my future ex-wife and I separated--I have been the dogs' primary caretaker, and I have had ample opportunity to observe them carefully. Here is what I now know.

Since the departure of my future ex-wife, Daisy has been the girl in my life. She is a mix breed approximately nine years old; she was fully grown when she was found on the streets, so no one knows exactly how old she is, but the vet tells me that her tartar buildup is about nine years' worth just before recommending that I have her teeth cleaned, which I pretend not to hear as it usually comes at the end of a visit that has already lightened my wallet by a couple hundred dollars. Besides, if I had her teeth cleaned, how would I know her age? Daisy has some pointer in her, but after that her lineage is a crapshoot. American Foxhound? Perhaps. Greyhound? She's dumb enough and high strung enough. Brittany? Sounds too exotic, but the hair color and length are about right. I've taken to describing her as a 'Carolina bird dog' and leaving it at that.

As previously mentioned, Daisy is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. She is also hound-dog skittish and, when agitated--which is pretty much whenever anything at all unexpected happens, no matter how trivial--she whines loudly and does a spastic dance my ex and I call her "full-body wag." She needs wide berth for the full-body wag because her tail whips furiously this way and that. She really could put an eye out with that thing, if that eye belonged to a child or little person. People who do not like dogs feel justified in their prejudice when they see the full-body wag.

Daisy is a meticulous self-groomer, to the extent that guests unfamiliar with her routines may blush. She operates a full wash-and-dry cycle, first licking and then huffing and puffing into her unmentionables without the slightest trace of self-consciousness. It is not her only obsessive behavior; there is also her pre-poop routine, which is as inscrutable as a David Foster Wallace novel. When she feels the moment approaching, she starts to pace an area no larger than 10 square feet, sticking her nose into various nooks and crannies in the turf as though attempting to determine la place juste for her deposit. There is no discernable difference between the spots she investigates, and yet her explorations usually go on for several minutes and can be alarmingly frantic. At times she will hunch and her scat will poke out of her sphincter, but then she will retract it as though to say, "No, not here, not today, not this poop," and her search will continue. Encouragement, praise, and offers of bribes are useless in hustling her along. I sometimes imagine flying Cesar Millan across country to see this ritual, not so that he could correct it but simply to hear him say, "Dude, that's one fucked up dog you've got there."

Daisy has a Buster Keaton face that bespeaks a resignation to life's unfairness. This is largely genetic, but it's hard to shake the feeling that it is at least partly the result of her having been placed in a home with a relentless tormentor. His name is Lebowski, and he is a Boston Terrier. Bostons come in two basic varieties: scrawny, and fullback. Lebowski is a fullback, with a low center of gravity that he uses to great effect. Although he weighs only 23 pounds, he can be quite difficult to move when he sets his mind to it.

Mostly, though, he sets his mind to making Daisy's life miserable. He waits until she has settled into her snuggle ball, then stands eight inches from her head and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks until she resignedly picks herself up and moves to the other, smaller snuggle ball. Ten minutes later, Lebowski barks her back to her original spot. This can go on all night. Sometimes Daisy looks up at me from a snuggle ball and I say, "You may kill him if you like, no one will blame you," but she is generally a gentle soul and so demurs.

Lebowski is not much for tricks, although he has a few. He does a splendid impression of the baby from Eraserhead; he lies on his back, wriggling and making a very strange gurgling sound and will not stop until a belly rub is administered. He can walk and poop at the same time; in fact, it seems to be the only way he can poop. Despite his being quite small, he seems to have an endless supply of pee, some portion of which he can hold in reserve for as long as you are willing to walk him. (I realize that many of my observations have to do with my dogs' voiding habits. Dog owners understand; for the rest of you, much of the quality time spent with dogs occurs during walks, the purpose of which is to empty the dogs so that they can be filled again come meal time.)

Lebowski's greatest trick involves tormenting Daisy, or so I imagine its purpose to be. When Daisy returns from a walk, Lebowski makes sure to get a good whiff of her butt before I leash him up. Once outside, Lebowski is on the hunt, and no matter where on the block Daisy has placed her leavings, Lebowski will find them and pee on them. This is no mean feat, as he accomplishes this over great range and sometimes in strong, swirling winds. Perhaps I am projecting but Lebowski always looks especially pleased with himself when he finishes his work. He has trumped Daisy's mark with his own, and the all-important Fields of Defecation now belong to him.

I could go on and on about my dogs, but I believe this is enough of a teaser to get publishers flocking to me. Don't you? Now for the $64,000 question: have I learned Important Life Lessons from Daisy and Lebowski? I don't think so, but I'm willing to work with a good editor who believes otherwise, who can find and cull--or, if necessary, invent--those lessons from my stories. They may already be there; I may be that 'two standard deviations to the left of norm' male who is too obtuse even to appreciate the shallow emotional depths of my relationship with my dogs. The kind of guy, perhaps, who needs to be retired to a golf course as soon as possible. Which would explain why I am today a Reluctant Bachelor.

So there you go.