protecting Scully
Scully, aka sausage with legs, has a bad habit of eating books. She's no longer allowed in S.'s office for this reason, but until recently she's not bothered any of the books on the living room shelves. Last week S. came home to find shreds of the cover and the corner of a hardcover book all over the living room floor--and this was a book he's not yet read. Angry. Not happy. Scully, his favorite baby girl, was in the doghouse. At least it wasn't any of his 9/11 books. This is how he comforts himself.
To prevent further book consumption (heh), S. put photo frames and big ol' candle jars on the bottom shelves of the living room bookcases.
Yesterday I got to S.'s house for dinner before he got home from work--he'd stopped at the grocery store and it'd taken longer than he'd expected. This happens when you buy two of everything. My sweet hoarder. So I sat down at his computer desk off the living room and got right back up again when I saw the paper shreds in the living room. Scully had knocked over the picture frames and taken out one of the 9/11 books and, well, chewed the cover and one of the top corners to shreds. Honey not gonna be happy. I cleaned up the mess and hid the book. Then I transferred all books from the bottom shelves to higher ones. I told Scully she was lucky I was the first one there.
He'd had a bad day at work. He comes in with all the groceries and, as I'm helping him unpack all his stuff, including a cool new plastic spatula, he senses something's wrong.
S.: Something's wrong. What is it?
me: What makes you say that?
S.: You're being far too accommodating. You're not giving me shit about buying two of everything and you're not making a fuss about throwing the old spatula away.
me: Well, I was waiting to tell you.
S.: What is it? Just tell me.
me: You're going to be really angry.
S.: [moans]
me: It has nothing to do with us. I'm trying to protect Scully.
S.: She didn't eat another book, did she?
me: Uh, yeah.
S.: Not one of my 9/11 books.
me: Uh, yeah.
And so it went. But the best part was the discussion later.
me: What made you realize something was wrong? Was I really being that nice?
S.: Not nice so much as accommodating. You weren't giving me any shit. You always give me shit.
me: Huh. That's funny.
S.: Actually, it was kinda scary.
posted by aerobil @ 8:13 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
A couple of differing opinions (at least from my point of view).
1) I didn't use any profanity about the way Amy treats me
2) As a former mental health therapist, I'm pretty good at sensing things with other people, and when she didn't make fun of me, after a couple of minutes I knew something was wrong
3) I actually saw a couple of books that Amy had moved from the bottom shelf on the other side of the entertainment center laying on the floor, and thought Scully got into them. One of them was a 1970 world atlas that my parents gave me for Christmas when I wasn't even in school yet (I know it doesn't mean anything to Amy, but I'm very sentimental about things like that).
4) I used to think she was a true-blue American, but so far, in the almost 8 years I've had her, she has eaten, among other books:
1) a book about the American Revolution
2) a Bible
3) One of my continuing education insurance notebooks
4) And, of course, the 9/11 book
I'm wondering exactly where he loyalties lie.
S.
I'm ready for cute dog stories again, and from afar, this is adorable.
I still have the antique plate Auggie broke.
Now, you could think of Scully's appetite not in terms of destroying these books, but in wanting to actually consume them. I mean, since she can't read, this is the next best thing, right? She's probably just frustrated by this whole staring-at-two-dimensional-stuff thing her humans are doing....
dr dooce strikes again!
Post a Comment
<< Home