I’ve written previously about the time our 7-year-old told me it says in the Bible I have to love Snickers.
She’s maybe the first rabbinical scholar who wears a pony tail, is missing her two front teeth and dresses in “Hello Kitty!” pink.
She swears it’s true.
“It says so right in the Bible,” she says. “You have to love your dog. So you have to love Snickers.”
As she’s always sticking her tongue out at me and calling me “Mr. Stinky,” I can only conclude she hasn’t gotten to the part where God says she’s supposed to honor her father and mother.
I have to love the dog?
For God’s sake, isn’t it enough that I have to be nice to in-laws?
Being told you have to love someone or something is one of the most loathsome circumstances in human existence. It happens in arranged marriages and to those forced to care for crazy, old uncles.
Being forced to love Snickers is worse. If I was in an arranged marriage I know I’d at least get a little sex out of the deal because it says in the Bible the wife has to put out for the husband.
At least that’s what I keep telling my wife.
And there are upsides to caring for a crazy old uncle because you know someday he’s bound to die. And he might have some loot stashed away for you to plunder seconds after you’re done pissing all over his grave.
The only motivation for me to love Snickers is purely negative. I know if I do not, I’ll lose the love of my darling daughters and that would break my heart.
Oh, I’ll still be fine, of course. I’ll persevere steadfast in the knowledge there’s nothing I could do that would cause me to lose the love of the boys at the bar so I’ll still manage.
God’s blessed me with the gift of resilience.
Having Snickers for a pet is like having an in-house squirrel that barks. Part chihuahua, part terrier, nothing about him conveys relaxation.
He barks at passing cars, birds, neighbors, thunder, clouds, wind, loud farts -- you name it. His ears are so alert he barks at the sound a single leaf makes when it hits the ground outside our house -- and we live in the woods!
His barks always make me think of the jagged scratchings on California seismographs when they begin to detect the San Andreas fault is beginning to separate.
Somehow, I’ve managed to overcome this nerve-racking hysteria to become sort of chummy with him. I no longer shove him off my lap when comes up to snuggle, and I try and sound less impatient when I’m out cheerleading him to stop sniffing the earth and just poop, for Pete’s sake.
But the dog keeps making it more and more difficult.
Lately, it’s all his licking. He licks everything. He licks the couch cushions. He licks the carpet. He licks Lucy’s face seconds after he licks parts of himself that would make human contortionists twist their heads in disgust.
The worst part?
Anytime he licks anything he stares straight at me.
Have you seen the Mylie Cyrus “Wrecking Ball” video? In it, she licks the hard part of a sledge hammer in a move I sense is meant to turn me on.
I have no idea what Snickers is trying to convey by staring at me because he’s even less sexy than Cyrus. It creeps me out.
The worst is at night.
For some reason, he eschews both the girls’ beds to sleep with us. Yippee. So I’ll be trying to drift off and there in the dark it’ll commence.
Lick. Lick. Lick. Lick.
It’s like a porn soundtrack being played on a TV with a broken screen. And I know the whole time he’s staring straight at me.
Lick. Lick. Lick. Lick.
Whether or not the Bible tells me so, Lucy’s right. For the sake of family cohesion, I do have to love Snickers. That means I need to endure all the barking and all his other disgusting pastimes.
That means Snickers has me right where he wants me.
I’m licked.
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