Chapter EIGHT
Barking up the Wrong Tree
I spent the better part of my early twenties being too much of a weakling to tell my friends that I had absolutely no interest in
picking them up from airports, seeing them perform in their improvisation troupes, or, the worst of all three, dog-sitting. I don’t
have a problem with animals in general, but I’m just not one of those people who’s looking to pack my schedule with some extra one-
on-one time with a friend’s dog.
I also don’t appreciate people who celebrate their dog’s birthday with “dog parties,” and then invite their friends who don’t even
have dogs. I understand why people like dogs, and I think they definitely bring more to the table than cats or those godforsaken
ferrets, but I don’t think it’s healthy for people to treat their dogs like they are real people. Another thing I take issue with are
people who take their dogs on “play dates,” or even worse, people who choose to dress their dogs up in outfits better suited for
homosexuals participating in a gay pride parade. Dog costumes are right up there with something else I find particularly offensive:
sweater vests.
A friend of mine, Lesley, whom I had dog-sat for in the past, called me to tell me she and her sixty-year-old boyfriend were going away
for a long weekend to celebrate the holiday. Why they assumed I had no plans of my own for Flag Day was not only insulting on a
personal level, but on a national level as well.
“We wanted to know if you wanted to dog-sit for Pepper and Daisy,” she said to me over the phone while I was trying to figure out the
best way to disguise a huge bruise I had on my upper arm from a Yahtzee tournament I had participated in the night before. I wanted to
tell her that I’d rather be forced to watch a Lord of the Rings marathon and then be raped by a hobbit than dog-sit for anyone. But I
hadn’t had enough therapy at that point to know about creating boundaries, so instead I said, “Definitely!”
Lesley and her father/boyfriend live in a big house in Brentwood and are under the impression that anyone who lives in an apartment
would jump at the chance to sleep in a real live house. This is not the case, unless of course you were raised in a shelter. Or if the
house you’re pet-sitting in has a pool, butler, steam room, and a closet filled with cocaine. I take absolutely no pleasure in staying
at other people’s homes. Even when I go to visit a friend in another city, I rarely stay at their place. I prefer hotels and not
having to worry about walking around naked or farting, which happens almost every time I get into a cross-legged position. The biggest
discomfort of all is sleeping in someone else’s bed, which is not appealing on any level—unless, of course, penetration is involved.
I went by later that day to pick up the keys from Lesley, giving myself the middle finger the whole way there. Not only was it
imperative that I sleep at their house because if Pepper, their newest dog, wasn’t put in a crate at night she’d shit all over the
floor, but they also made it a regular habit to cook fresh ground hamburger meat twice a week for Daisy, their golden retriever. One of
my responsibilities would include taking a big log of hamburger meat out of the freezer, defrosting it, and then cooking it in a frying
pan. Each batch was meant to last for three days, but with me also snacking on it regularly, I ended up having to make three to four
batches.
I had met Lesley a couple of years earlier when I had worked at a restaurant called Chaya Venice. I wasn’t even really good friends
with her, but I made the mistake of dog-sitting for another girl at work, and word spread like an AMBER Alert. The most ridiculous
thing about it was I had never led anyone to believe I even liked dogs that much. The only animals I had ever been publicly effusive
about were apes. Aside from their bright pink a*sholes that stick out like toilet plungers, I think that as far as personalities go,
they really have the most to offer.
The minute I arrived at Lesley’s house, insanity ensued. Anytime the front door was opened, Lesley had a full-on wrestling match with
Daisy, the big dog, while simultaneously shooing away Pepper, the Peekapoo, so that neither would escape. My feeling is, if a dog is
that hard up to break free, let it go. It’s like a boyfriend who wants to break up. We all know the old adage, “If you set someone
free, and he never comes back, then he was never yours.” I understand the main fear with setting dogs loose is that they could get hit
by a car, but so could an ex-boyfriend. That’s just a chance you have to take.
In between her screaming “Daisy, down!” and “Pepper, no!,” we chitchatted and she reminded me how to use all the TVs and DVD
players and told me where the dog park was. I wanted to tell her that I’d sooner buy an RV and drive across the country with Lorenzo
Lamas than hang out for the afternoon at a smelly park covered in dog shit.
Lesley’s lover, Jerry, came out midway through my briefing and reminded me not to leave any small items out, referring to the last
time I dog-sat, when Daisy ate my cell phone, contact-lens case, and an entire box of Godiva chocolates I had found in their cupboard.
They were nice enough to reimburse me for the phone, but obviously I didn’t tell them about the box of chocolates since I was the one
who left them out in the first place. The important lesson I learned from that is that dogs do not necessarily go into cardiac arrest
if they have chocolate. They also need to have a history of alcoholism, smoking, and/or a drug dependency.
Jerry was a really nice guy, but my main problem with him was that he had a double-decker toe. His middle toe laid directly on top of
his index toe. If this is the hand you’re dealt in life, then fine, but at least have the courtesy to keep the situation under wraps
until all parties have been fully prepped for an unveiling. He constantly walked around in open-toed sandals as if nothing whatsoever
was wrong. I find that to be not only arrogant, but Jerry obviously had no concern for other people’s comfort levels or gag reflexes,
which is just plain disrespectful.
The worst part was that while I was trying not to stare at his deformity, the stupid little dog, Pepper, insisted on jumping up and
down—ricocheting off my leg, back onto the floor, and up again—and I had to pretend in front of his owners that he was one of the
cutest things I’d ever seen.
The most insulting part of this dog-sitting bonanza is that Lesley insisted on paying me forty dollars a day. I know that’s kind of
generous, but at the time, I was a regular on a television show, and although it was on a cable vagina network, I was making plenty of
money to live on. I was dog-sitting as a favor, not to rake in an extra one hundred and sixty bucks over a four-day period.
I left there wondering why I was constantly getting myself into situations that I wanted no part of. I called my boyfriend at the time,
Mohammed. That wasn’t his actual name, but he was half Persian, which he failed to inform me of until our third date, and as
punishment for trying to cover up his heritage, I thought it best to only refer to him as the most Middle Eastern name I could think
of: Mohammed. Being Persian is very similar to the double-decker toe. These are things you need to brace another person for.
Heavy M and I had been dating for a couple of months and we pretty much spent every night together. We clicked instantly, and I had
wondered if maybe he was the perfect match for my personality, but also wrestled with the idea of our children being raised by the
Ayatollah. If I had to compare him to well-known celebrities, I’d say he looked like a cross between David Duchovny and Will Smith. He
looked a lot like David, but his skin had the tone that some people would refer to as olive. The olives I come in contact with the most
are green, so I would more accurately describe his skin tone as a café latte. He was definitely sexy due to having the same laid-back
personality as Matthew McConaughey, minus having the inclination to play the bongos while high on the Mary Jane.
“Yo, yo, yo,” I said as he picked up the phone. “I have some bad news.”
“What?”
“I’m dog-sitting for some friends of mine you’ve never met, and probably never will. They have a house in Brentwood and I have to
sleep there for the next three nights.”
“Why are you doing that?” he asked.
“Because I’m an a*shole.”
“Well, why do you have to sleep there?”
“Because their little Peekapoo can’t be left alone at night or he cries.”
“What’s a Peekapoo?” he asked.
“Like a Chihuahua, but worse.”
“I hate Chihuahuas.”
“I know, she caught me off guard when she called, so I’m just f*cked. You can sleep here too,” I told him. Mohammed had a beautiful
house in the Palisades, so there was definitely no draw for him to be sleeping in a stranger’s house down the road.
“Great,” he said with the same excitement you’d exude after finding out that Lionel Richie was performing in your hometown. Mohammed
was very sarcastic, which is what drew me to him in the first place. He was a real-estate attorney who made his own hours, worked
sparsely, and managed to make a fortune, three qualities I am always drawn to in a Persian.
“Do we have to play with them?” he asked.
“Well, no, but it’s not like we can hit them,” I told him. “I have to take them for walks and stuff, and make sure they’re fed,
but they’re kind of high maintenance, so I totally understand if you don’t want to sleep there.”
“Uh-huh.” He sighed. “Well, I’m going to a rifle range, wanna come?” he asked.
“Why are you going to a rifle range?” I asked him.
“I don’t know, I thought it might be interesting to learn how to use a firearm. It might be a good idea for you to learn also, just
in case I ever decide to backhand you.”
“That’s an excellent point, but I think I’m going to go home and pack some stuff for the next few days. And then Fantasia is coming
over to clean my apartment, and I have to be there so she doesn’t take anything.” A month earlier I had come home after my cleaning
lady had been there to find my TiVo missing. After refreshing my espa?ol via telefonica with a busboy I had kept in touch with since my
waitressing days, I mustered up the courage to confront her.
She picked up after three rings and I went for it. “Hola, Fantasia, this is Yelsea.”
“Hola, Yelsea!”
“Donde esta TiVo?”
Her response was “Okay, bye,” and then a dial tone. Fantasia had hung up on me.
The following Monday she brought my TiVo back with major attitude. “Aqui!” she yelled as she slammed it down on the table. I didn’t
understand what her problem was, or why I was then stuck watching twenty-five episodes of ?Donde Esta Selena?
The next day I drove over to Lesley’s around noon to begin my dog-sitting duties, and the dogs went absolutely nuts the minute I
opened the door. You’d think they’d been left alone for an entrire week already.
“Jesus,” I moaned as both of them jumped up and down, and Pepper barked in his signature high pitch. “Hi, guys.” I feigned
enthusiasm as I bent down and pet them both, paranoid that Lesley and Jerry had installed some sort of neighborhood pet-watch video
cameras.
I took the dogs outside to the backyard and found a tennis ball on the lawn. The backyard was enclosed by a wall made out of large
stones leading up a steep hill so that the dogs couldn’t escape.
“All right, guys,” I announced, “let’s play catch.” I threw the ball once and then walked back inside and closed the glass door. I
had been there for a total of ten minutes and was already wiped out.
Just as I was falling into a deep sleep on the sofa, I heard loud barking. After fifteen more minutes of this, I creaked my head up and
saw a lawnmower at the top of the hill in their backyard with no one operating it. Daisy was nowhere to be found, and Pepper, of
course, was doing her usual musical number, which was about as soothing as an Ozzy Osbourne concert.
“F*ck!” I groaned, and jumped up to go outside. I could hear Daisy barking but couldn’t see her anywhere.
“Daisy,” I called as I tried to catapult myself over the rock base leading to the woods.
“Daisy!” I screamed. “Daisy!”
I looked over into the neighbor’s yard and saw Daisy at the base of the tree, barking at a gardener who was hanging above her with his
wrists and his feet wrapped around a branch, positioned a foot apart. Like a koala bear.
“Daisy,” I hollered as I ran along the side of the incline over to the tree, through thick branches and dirt, and along a side
incline that made for very unlevel footing. Why a grown man would be afraid of a golden retriever made about as much sense as Janet
Reno casually dating Kanye West.
“Lo siento!” I said. “I’m so sorry! Daisy, get over here!” Daisy turned around and saw me, then ran in the direction of the street
at a speed upward of the typical ten miles per hour I’ve known most dogs to be capable of.
The descent down into the street was a steep one since both homes were set high up on a hill. Boarding a sled and heading downhill on
solid pavement would have been less frightening than running down a ninety-degree angle in platforms. Not only did I roll my ankle
twice, I fell into a double somersault, which, to my complete shock, turned into a round-off leading into a triple back handspring,
ending with me at the bottom of the neighbor’s driveway with two bloody knees and a hangnail.
Daisy was at the bottom of the hill running away from me as I was trying to catch her. After a good minute and a half of running in the
same exact circle, I realized we were in a holding pattern. I stopped, and so did she.
“Let’s go!” I said, and clapped my hands. Then she walked right over to me and sat down. I grabbed her collar and dragged her over
to Lesley’s driveway and back up the hill. Luckily, I had left the garage door open, and was able to get in through there.
After I brought Pepper in from the back, I went into the bathroom to clean myself up and look for some Band-Aids. Of course, the dogs
couldn’t be left alone for more than thirty seconds, so instead of using disinfectant or rubbing alchohol, I was treated to the two of
them alternately licking the blood off my knees. “Stop it,” I yelled, and then before I knew it, I started crying like a baby.
Without collecting my thoughts or gathering any composure, I called Mohammed while simultaneously spitting up.
“Please come over here,” I cried, and gave him the address.
Twenty minutes later he was knocking on the front door, which, of course, made both dogs jump up and down like a couple of lunatics. I
opened the door feeling incredibly sorry for myself and, once again, burst into tears.
“These dogs are gonna drive me to drink!”
“What happened to your knees?” he asked, noticing I had a piece of bathroom tissue covering each knee, both soaked in B-positive
blood.
“Daisy escaped and I had to run down the hill in my shoes, and it wasn’t pretty.”
He was very sweet with me, giving me a hug and then taking the dogs into the living room and letting them jump all over him in an
effort to allow me some time to comport myself. I went in the bathroom and cleaned myself off, and when I came out, Mohammed was
outside throwing the tennis ball with the dogs. He came inside with them when he saw me.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I can’t understand why I am always falling all over the place,” I said, sitting down on the sofa. “You’d the think the advantage
of having eight years of tap on my side would help me with some of the coordination challenges I seem to regularly find myself up
against.”
“I take it you’re feeling better. Do you think you might cry again?”
“Yes,” I said, as the dogs ran over to me, jumping up and down. The big one was at least cute, and as annoying as she was, you couldn
’t get mad at a golden retriever. The little Peekapoo, on the other hand, wasn’t attractive on any level, and that, combined with his
high-pitched squeal, made me want to throw him against a wall.
“I feel bad about the feelings I’m having toward this little shit dog,” I told Mohammed while simultaneously rubbing Pepper’s head.
“I don’t want to hurt him, but I really feel like if I have to stay here for three days, I’m going to kill one of them or myself.”
“Well, you should definitely not kill one of the dogs,” he said. “You could go to prison.”
“Thanks.”
“That dog is really stupid. I don’t understand people’s obsession with little dogs,” he said. “I’ll stay here with you.”
“Thank you,” I told him, flattered he would be willing to support me in that way. “Is there any chance you would sleep here by
yourself?” I asked him.
“No.”
What I did remember from last time is that Pepper spent the majority of the night crying in his cage like a little bitch, but I wasn’t
about to give Mohammed the heads-up on that one.
“They have the DVD box set of all four seasons of Sex and the City,” I said. “Wanna watch?”
“No.”
“What about all five seasons of Saved by the Bell?”
“Fine.”
We walked into their media room and closed the door, leaving the dogs in the hall to fend for themselves. It was time for a break. As
we were watching one of the episodes I turned to Mohammed. “Who would you rather have sex with, Screech or Star Jones?”
“Star Jones now, or before her gastric bypass?”
“Before.”
“Who’s giving and who’s taking?” he asked.
“Screech is giving, and you’d have to go down on Star Jones for one hour…after she went jogging.”
“I choose both,” he said.
“Interesting. Very interesting.”
“Wanna have sex in their bed?” he asked.
“Well, yeah, but it’s gonna have to be a quickie,” I told him. “I need to run some errands.”
We walked out of the media room, and of course the moment the dogs heard the door open they were running down the hallway from the
living room, drooling all over the place. We went into the bedroom, and I put Pepper in his crate. “Are the sheets clean?” Mohammed
asked.
“Yes.”
“Then why are they covered in dog hair?” he asked, throwing the comforter on the floor.
“Gross. I really think dogs are unsanitary,” I said. “I think it’s actually only the comforter. The sheets should be clean.”
“They are,” he agreed, inspecting them. “What do you think is worse? Allowing them to sleep in the bed with you, or putting them in
a cage?”
“Allowing them to sleep in the bed with you. By the way, Daisy sleeps in the bed.” Pepper started yapping again and I walked over and
let him out of his cage. We jumped into bed and started fooling around. Within seconds, both dogs were on the bed with us.
“This isn’t going to work,” I said.
“Go get them out of the room and close the door,” he suggested.
“Just forget it,” I said, losing interest and getting dressed. “I have to go pick up my dry cleaning anyway. Just take your nap, and
we’ll go out to dinner. We’d have better luck having sex in your car.”
“I’m open to that.”
I grabbed my keys and headed to the door as the dogs engaged in the same tug-of-war routine that happened when anyone entered or left
the house. Once inside my car, I looked down at my black pants that I had changed into after my downhill slalom only to discover I was
completely covered in Daisy’s hair. I was starting to feel like a real a*shole.
An hour later I came back to the house and walked inside. Surprisingly, Daisy was the only one who accosted me upon opening the front
door. I walked into the bedroom and found Mohammed lying in bed, still with his clothes off, watching Dr. Phil with Pepper cuddled up
next to him.
“This dog can’t get enough of me,” he said, laughing.
“Why are you letting her in the bed? Those sheets are clean; they’re gonna get all smelly.”
“It’s a he, and apparently he’s gay,” Mohammed declared, still laughing.
“Oh, really?” I asked him. “When did you start speaking Peekapoo?”
“Right after he licked my huge penis.”
“I really hope you’re kidding,” I said, hanging my dry cleaning in the closet.
“No, actually.”
I turned around and walked back into the room. “You let Pepper lick your penis?”
“He just did it. I didn’t whip it out. I was lying here watching Dr. Phil, who, by the way, has some anger management issues. Doesn’
t his wife Robin look like she’s been hypnotized? I feel like he goes home and beats her. The guy’s an egomaniac, and he’s not doing
a very job of covering it up by pretending to be interested in other people’s problems.”
“Can we get back to you and Pepper, please?”
“I was lying here and he jumped up and came right for me. I picked him up and threw him on the floor, but he came back again, and, to
be honest, it didn’t feel so bad.”
There was a long silence while I stared at Mohammed, who for some reason thought this was hilarious and couldn’t stop laughing. I didn
’t find it amusing…. Maybe a little, but I wasn’t about to let him know that until I found out exactly how far they had gone.
“Are you telling me that you hooked up with a Peekapoo?”
“I wouldn’t call it hooking up, but yes, I would say there was a line that was crossed, and I blame Pepper.”
“Mohammed, that is disgusting and foul. Did you climax?”
“No!” he said. Now he was laughing so hard he was crying. All the while, Pepper was nuzzling up against his neck in a postcoital
embrace.
“If a grown man is going to hook up with a dog, you’d think he’d at least pick a respectable-size one,” I said, looking at Daisy,
who was lying on the floor hiding her head shamefully. “And can you please get him away from your neck? That is really creeping me
out.”
“I didn’t initiate it, Pepper did. And besides, it was for two seconds. It’s not like he gave me a blow job.”
“Well, it sounds like a blow job to me,” I told him.
“Well, maybe it ‘sounds like a blow job’ to you, because that’s what you think one is.”
“Oh, that is low. That is really low.”
“I’m kidding!” he yelled.
“No, you’re not. You’re not kidding. You’re not the first person to mention my lack of enthusiasm for blow jobbing, and I’ll be
perfectly honest with you, maybe it’s not my specialty, but making me feel bad about it sure isn’t going to help me blow job better.
”
“I wouldn’t actually call what you do a blow job, Chelsea. It’s more of a kiss job.”
“Oh, that’s just great. What kind of person lets a dog lick his penis? That’s bestiality.”
“No, Chelsea, bestiality is having sex with an animal.” Then Pepper jumped up and ran down to his groin, obviously wanting more. This
sent Mohammed into a huge eruption of hysterics.
“You have some serious problems and you should really think about talking to someone. Possibly a vet. And I’m not talking about the
ones from Vietnam,” I told him.
“It’s not like I was walking around swinging my dick in the air, taunting him. It was an accident!”
“How someone lets a dog lick his penis accidentally is about as believable as me accidentally joining a flag-football team.”
“I would believe that. I think you’ve proven once again today that your hand-eye coordination is tantamount only to Oksana Baiul and
Tiger Woods.”
“This isn’t funny. I leave for an hour and you hook up with a dog? You obviously can’t be trusted,” I declared, shrugging my
shoulders.
“Well, at least I stopped him when he went around to lick my ass.”
“Okay,” I said as I walked over, picked Pepper up, and tossed him in his cage. “How many times did he lick it?”
“Three or four.”
“Your ass or your penis?”
“My penis three or four; my ass, I stopped him before a full lick. I thought that was going too far.”
“And did you do anything to Pepper?”
“Chelsea, please.”
“Chelsea, please? Please what? I think these are reasonable questions to ask someone who’s been intimate with a canine.”
“No! I did NOT DO ANYTHING TO PEPPER…” Then, after a significant pause…“A little smack on the ass.”
“That’s lovely.” For dramatic effect, I crossed my arms and moved my head in a circular motion like a seagull. “How do you feel
about yourself?”
“I feel great,” he said, changing the channel. “The problem is, Pepper liked it a lot, and he obviously has feelings for me. It’s
not going to be easy to wean him.” Now Pepper was whining in his crate, staring at Mohammed, beckoning for him to come to his rescue.
“It’s okay, little buddy, we’ll let you out again, once Chelsea calms herself down,” Mohammed told him in some sort of gross
Persian baby talk.
“Please stop talking to the dog like that.”
“Does it make you jealous?” he asked.
“No, it makes me nauseous.”
My cell phone rang and I walked over to my purse to get it, all the while keeping my eyes on Mohammed and Pepper. The big dog was
holding her head in both of her paws, still not ready to face the situation.
“Yello?” I answered as I picked up the phone.
“I am a real loser,” was the first thing Ivory said.
“Why?” I asked, unmoved, as this was not an uncommon way for her to begin a conversation.
“I just woke up alone in my bed with my pants around my ankles, my vibrator in between my legs, and my glasses on.”
“You just woke up?” I asked, looking at the clock. “It’s five o’clock!”
“That’s not really the point.”
“Well, don’t feel too bad about yourself,” I said, returning to the death stare I was giving Mohammed. “Mohammed hooked up with a
dog.”
“Chelsea!” he hissed as he tossed a pillow at me.
“What kind of dog?” Ivory asked.
“A Peekapoo.”
“Ew.”
“Yeah.”
“Chelsea, shut up, do not tell your friends that!” he said as he got of bed and started to run after me.
“That’s right,” I told her, scurrying out of the bedroom. “And he liked it!”
I looked over my shoulder and saw Mohammed’s penis swinging in the wind while he was chasing me down the hall, making that the second
time in my life since I was seven that I had been chased by a penis.
“That’s pretty disgusting. I’m feeling a little better about myself now,” was the last thing she said before he grabbed the phone
out of my hand, hung it up, and then tackled me to the floor. By this time Daisy had come out of her comatose state and was coming to
my aid.
“You better watch your ass,” I yelled at him in between breaths. “Here comes another dog!”
Once we both caught our breaths, he urged me not to divulge this information to any of my other friends.
“You made your bed, now you have to get blown by a dog in it,” I told him. “I just don’t understand why you would do something like
that.”
“I thought it was funny, and you do too.”
“You’re mistaken.” There was something very unsettling about what had taken place. Even more unsettling than walking in on my father
’s forty-five-year-old black housekeeper cleaning his kitchen in her underwear, with my mother obliviously knitting on a sofa in the
living room and my father watching the cleaning lady through binoculars from another sofa twenty feet away.
“Oh, please, I had a cousin whose wife let her dog go down on her,” Mohammed informed me.
“What? What are you talking about?! This isn’t something that happens on a regular basis, Mohammed! Not in the United States, anyway.
I mean, things like this happen, but mostly with horses, and mostly in the south. And by the way,” I added, “people go to prison for
it. I understand there was no penetration, and maybe this is big in the Middle East, but I would really appreciate it if you took a
shower and got dressed. Somehow, I’ve developed an appetite.”
Ivory called me back an hour later and said she was invited to a party in Malibu. “Bring the doggies; it’s outside, and I’d love to
see them.” The fact that she had any interest in seeing dogs she had never met made me realize she was really desperate for company.
Later that afternoon Mohammed and I grabbed the dogs, put them in his SUV, and drove out to Malibu. The house was big and beautiful,
like most houses in Malibu, and belonged to some actor who I’d never heard of before. I spent most of the time inside, talking to
Ivory and Lydia, and then I decided I should go find Mohammed.
I found him lying on a chaise lounge by the pool, with Pepper in his arms and Daisy nowhere in sight. “What are you doing?” Judging
from his closed eyes and the smile on his face, I had woken him from a wet dream. “Where’s Daisy?”
“She’s on the beach. I tied her leash to the deck, she’s fine. I can’t let Pepper go; he just keeps attacking my package,” he said
through clenched teeth. There were several people around and none of them were talking to Mohammed.
“You look like a molester, sitting out here with that dog in a headlock. Let go of him.”
“Fine,” he said, releasing his grip. “Watch.”
Pepper jumped up, squealed, and then buried his head right between Mohammed’s legs.
“See? He won’t stop! Everybody’s been watching.”
“This is ridiculous.” I was thoroughly annoyed at this point, and walked back inside. Every time I looked outside, it was the same
scenario playing out. Mohammed oohing and aahing with Pepper like they were having an affair behind my back. An hour later I had had
enough and went and collected my dog whisperer and the two dogs. “Let’s go. I’m hot.”
The rest of the weekend was spent with Pepper following Mohammed around the house like cheap perfume. After two full days of being
rebuffed, Pepper finally gave up and put himself in a corner. Not only did he refuse to eat, but when Mohammed went anywhere near him,
Pepper would shake violently and growl. He was spurned by his lover and his heart was breaking.
Mohammed and I eventually broke up, but not because of Pepper. A couple of weeks later he took me to meet his parents, who lived in San
Clemente, about an hour’s drive away. His father was nice enough, but his mother was not at all what I had expected. Not only was she
extremely unpleasant, but she looked exactly like a man. She had an unreasonable amount of facial hair along with what appeared to be a
large mole or herpes sore on the corner of her mouth that was sprouting additional facial hair. She had Nick Lachey’s body, a deep
voice, very small boobies, and a crew cut. It would have come as no surprise if she had walked into the backyard to compete in a rock-
hurling competition after dinner.
I did not like the looks of her and was surprised that Mohammed had made no mention of the fact that he had two dads. Not only did she
blow her nose several times during dinner, she barely spoke a word to me, and when she did, it was to ask me to pass her a turkey leg.
“What’s the deal with your mom?” I asked him on the way home.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, don’t you think she’s kind of manly?” I asked him. “Does she lift weights?”
Mohammed hit the roof upon hearing the last sentence and said I was a spoiled brat who was disrespectful and had no sensitivity. I was
pretty surprised to see that side of him. He had no sense of humor about it, and was being very defensive and nasty. If we couldn’t
laugh at his mother’s appearance, then what kind of future did we have?
“I just asked you a question,” I said, hopping out of the car when he dropped me off without even pulling into the driveway. Without
a response, he sped away, leaving me standing in the middle of the street.
A year later I ran into him at a Starbucks. I was at the counter ordering a cappuccino when I saw him through the window, seated
outside…with a Peekapoo. I walked outside and stood in front of him face to face. “Well, well, well. It looks like you really found
what you were looking for, ya sick f*ck.” A girl from inside walked up and stood next to us, glaring at me. It was clear she was with
him.
“Is this your dog?” I asked her.
“No, it’s mine,” Mohammed answered.
“I’ll bet it is, ya sicko. I’ll bet it is.”
Then I turned to his new girlfriend and smiled big. “He’s so great with dogs. You can leave the two of them alone and you never have
to worry about any hanky panky. I mean, unless you’re gone for more than an hour.”
The look on her face was the perfect revenge. I patted her on the shoulder sympathetically, smiled at Mohammed, and turned on my heels
to walk away triumphantly, knowing that I had delivered the perfect innuendo with considerable aplomb.
It became clear as I got in my car that Persians are only really good for two things. Oil and hummus.