Episode 101: How to Bathe Your Dog

OK, so. We used to get birds in our house all the time. They would fly down the chimney and then hide in dark corners of the dining room until the moment we were preparing the samovar and then they would LEAP out from behind the curtains with their wings all atwitter and would get all up in our faces until we fell over with heart failure and then Fanny, our 100-year old cat, would jump six feet straight up and snatch the bird out of mid air and kill it right there on the spot. It got to where she would just sit in front of the fireplace and let them fly into her mouth as they came down the chimney.

So one time I decided to bathe our little dog Bernie, who was also a hundred years old. He was difficult to bathe, all shaky and twisty and jumpy and screamy. It made a big mess so the only way to do it was to just strip down and be prepared to get wet. So I was in the bathroom in my underwear with a screaming dog and a bathtub full of suds and it was all steamy so I had my glasses off. And I reached up to push my hair out of my face and....there was a bird on my head. WELL! I threw the dog down in to the water and banged against the sink and banged against the door and fell down on the floor and the whole time the bird was beating his wings against my head, which was probably not helping the stroke I was having. And the whole time, Little Bernie is squeeeeeeeeeling at the top of his lungs, too small to jump out of the tub as the water rose.

It's like one of those Saturday morning cliffhangers, isn't it? What would I do? How would it end? I wish I could say that the door creeeeeeaaaaaked open and ta-da! Fanny to the rescue, wearing a little tiny cat-cape, fangs dripping, tail twitching! But, alas, no -- she was asleep on my boudoir pillow. I eventually fell into a stack of towels and was able to cover the nasty little thing and throw it outside, where it promptly flew back up to its chimney nest and eventually down the chimney into Fanny's salivating jaws. And Bernie did not drown.