As you can see, I did indeed live. I hope you weren’t too scared while reading that. I can’t imagine a world without me, or this book, either. Anyway, Spike eventually learned to take his insulin injection like a champ, no muzzling required. He still needed a cheese bribe, but who would be stupid enough to pass up cheese, like, ever?
One morning, after waking up and going to the bathroom, I came back to the side of the bed to take Spike downstairs and noticed something on our white sheets that wasn’t there the night before. There were brown spots. And streaks. Instantly, I checked Spike’s butt. A hot, juicy strand of poop was dangling out of his rear end. He was inches away from my pillow and couldn’t have been more asleep. I’m obviously not a dog, but I gotta tell ya, if that were me, I would not be sleeping soundly. Spike? He was snug as a bug in a rug.
I walked over to Tim’s side of the bed. “Babe,” I said in a hushed tone. “Look at that,” and I pointed to the stains on the bed.
He woke up and rubbed his eyes. He looked at the stains. He looked at them closer. “Oh, my God! Danielle, I didn’t do that! Those aren’t from me,” he said in a complete panic.
“Ugh, of course they’re not from you,” I said.
Before I could tell him what was going on with Spike, he interrupted me. “Did you do that?”
My mouth dropped open. Then I replied, “Did I poop the bed and then wake you up to show you the stains? Is that really what you’re asking me right now? We sleep with two dogs in our bed, and your first thought when you see poop stains on the sheets is that they must be from one of us?”
Another vet visit and five hundred dollars later, we found out that Spike’s IBS and pancreatitis were flaring up and his intestines weren’t cooperating. He had also lost control of his anal sphincter. You read that right. His anal sphincter wasn’t contracting. Lovely!
Dr. Jang told us that he was going to send Spike home with a few more medications that might help with his poopy-butt problem. In the meantime, since Spike didn’t have any control over his butthole, Dr. Jang recommended that we get him some doggie diapers. Since Spike was always such a jerk delight and impossible to please easy to deal with, this was going to suck big time be so adorable!
Miniature dog diapers are actually quite cute. They have a hole cut out in the back for a dog tail and in every other way look like a newborn baby’s diaper. Trying to put one on Spike—not cute. I’d try to put it on him, and he’d slam his butt to the ground and try to bite me. But what were my options? Live with a dog who had a constant stream of runny poo falling out of his leaky sphincter or make him wear a diaper?
I opted to live with a dog who had a constant stream of runny poo falling out of his leaky sphincter. He refused to wear a diaper, and when I was finally able to get one on him, he wiggled out of it anyway. I decided to cover my couch and my bed with disposable doggie pee pads. I knew I was also going to have to take Spike out for walks a lot more often.
When I’m at home in the morning, I have a routine that I rarely divert from. I wake up, put on a hideous fluffy pink fleece robe, and go downstairs. I take the dogs out for a walk—in my robe. I have no shame. Am I supposed to wake up and immediately get dressed for the day just to walk my dogs? I don’t think so. My neighbors have seen me in my robe more often than they’ve ever seen me put together, and they probably think I am a giant slob, even though the truth is that I actually am a giant slob.
About three days into Spike’s sphincter problem, he started to get better. His poops had started to solidify again, but now he seemed to be struggling with minor constipation. I walked him around the block, and we ended up in front of my neighbor’s house. Spike got into poop position and started pushing. Something was trying to come out, but it was stuck to his butt. I got a little closer to inspect the problem (did I tell you how much I love dogs yet?).
He had a piece of my hair mixed in with his doo-doo, and he couldn’t push it out. I covered my hand with my biodegradable dog-poop bag and squatted to the ground in my pink robe. I reached for Spike’s butt, and he growled at me. I grabbed the poop mixed with my hair and pulled the long, stringy, smelly mess out while Spike kept turning around trying to bite me . . . at exactly the same moment that my neighbor, the one whose lawn we were occupying, walked out of his house.
“Hiiiieeee,” I said. “Really sorry about this, but Spike here is having some pooping issues. That’s probably too much information, right?” I laughed.
He didn’t say anything. He just stood there.
“OK, well, we’re gonna head back across the street now. Promise I picked everything up . . . not much is coming out of him these days anyway. Sorry, I don’t know why I can’t stop talking. ’Bye.”
I’ve seen that neighbor multiple times since then. He’s always been very nice, and we’ve never discussed that day when he innocently walked out of his home to find a neighbor in a huge pink robe, crouched on his lawn, pulling dog poop out of her dog’s butt. That’s probably for the best.
I can’t believe I waited to wash my foot so I could take a picture of this. But how do you not share this with people?
And with that, I leave you with another by-product of Spike’s poopy bottom. Sneak attacks when you aren’t looking.
* * *
CHAPTER 11
* * *
I WANT TO BE A RAPPER
Like all young, white, upper-middle-class girls, I grew up wanting to be one of two things: a waitress or a rapper. I’m pretty sure all little girls grow up with that same dream. No? Just me? Whatever.
Looking back, I realize that these goals were a little misguided. For one, I was probably the world’s first actress who wanted to be a waitress and not the other way around. And sadly, I was not blessed with the ability to write rhymes. (Even if I were, I’m pretty sure no one would have cared to hear the trials and tribulations of growing up in a well-adjusted family who lived in Orange County during the ’80s.) But that didn’t stop me from trying—in my own way.
I became obsessed with rap music at a very young age. While most of my friends were into rock and pop music, I was fanatical about Tupac, Notorious B.I.G., Snoop Doggy Dog (that was my favorite of his names), and Eminem. I would anxiously anticipate their album release dates, buy them on the first day, and then immediately memorize all of the lyrics. Truthfully, not much has changed, because I still do that to this day, even though ’90s rap will forever be my favorite.
In the late ’90s (it may have been 2000—I don’t remember dates very well), I was asked to be a celebrity contestant on MTV’s Say What Karaoke. For those of you who don’t remember, Say What Karaoke was a show where contestants would sing along to songs for a panel of celebrity judges. Sometimes the contestants were decent, and sometimes they were dreadful, which made it fun to watch. My first instinct was to scream “No!” and run for the hills, because I am not a terrific singer and, therefore, only sing in the car with my music turned up so loudly I can’t even hear me. But before I turned MTV down, I asked to see the catalog of songs they would allow the contestants to perform and I saw that Busta Rhymes’s new song “Gimme Some More” was on the list. I was sold.
I immediately started memorizing the lyrics and practicing Busta Rhymes’s super-fast speed. After a couple of days of studying, I felt totally comfortable with my progress, and I couldn’t wait for my opportunity to feel like a rapper onstage.
A few weeks later, it was time to tape the segment. The night before I was set to perform, the producers sent me a package. Inside was the schedule for the following day and the clean “Gimme Some More” lyrics. Because I am a total moron, I hadn’t thought about the fact that there were words in that song that I obviously wouldn’t be allowed to say on national television. Looking at the clean version, I barely even recognized the song. I was going to have to spend all night rememorizing lyrics to a song that didn’t give you any wiggle room for mistakes. I was a nervous wreck.
The next day was a blur. I don’t remember the whole process, because i
t all happened so fast, but I do know that I made it to the final round with Ahmet Zappa and Sarah Hagen, Samm Levine, and John Daley from Freaks and Geeks. If my memory serves correctly, Ahmet was performing a Britney Spears song, and the Freaks and Geeks kids did Smashmouth’s “Allstar.”
When it was my turn to perform, I put my earpiece in, and the music started. The audience began screaming so loudly that I couldn’t hear anything in my headset, and it was of no help to me. I knew I was going to have to rap based strictly on what I had memorized and rehearsed. I wanted to do a great job and come out victorious, but I felt like I might throw up instead.
Fortunately, I managed to keep my lunch down, but I didn’t get off to a great start. I started rapping the opening lyrics one second too early, which meant I rapped faster than Busta Rhymes through the entire song. Certainly not an easy feat, but it also didn’t win me any points. Ahmet Zappa claimed the victory and the prize, which was a snowboard. Backstage, everyone was very kind to me and told me what an amazing job I had done. All I knew was that I had failed myself and that I needed to put my dreams of rap stardom behind me.
For the rest of the weekend, everywhere I went, people would ask me about my performance and tell me how much they enjoyed it. It felt awesome, and I started to think that maybe I hadn’t been such a failure after all. On my last day at the hotel, I was walking toward the elevator, when a stranger yelled “Gimme Some More!” in my direction. Happy that someone had clearly appreciated my rap skills, I smiled and yelled “Gimme Some More!” right back—but someone else said it at the same time. I turned around to see who was trying to steal my spotlight and saw Busta Rhymes standing in the elevator holding the door for me. He was there to be a part of MTV’s “Spring Break,” and it was in that moment that I realized that the stranger was not yelling “Gimme Some More!” at me but at the far superior Busta. I bowed my head in embarrassment and stepped onto the elevator.
“Hey, I saw your performance yesterday. Pretty tight,” said the only man who was also on the elevator with Busta and me. “I’m Spliff.”
I immediately knew that Spliff was Spliff Star, because Busta mentioned him in “Gimme Some More,” and being a giant fan, I had looked him up. Apparently, he didn’t think I would believe him, even though Busta was in the elevator with us, because in order to prove he wasn’t lying, he lifted his shirt over his head to show me his huge tattoo that spelled “Spliff” across the top of his back.
“Oh, great. I’m a big fan, so I’m really embarrassed that I rapped it too fast,” I said.
Busta started laughing. “I didn’t get to see it, but any little girl who can rap faster than me is all right.”
I smiled as he and Spliff got off the elevator.
It’s been nearly fifteen years since that performance, and I have never watched it. I was too embarrassed at the time it aired to try to catch a rerun of the episode. For some reason, there isn’t a video of it anywhere online, but I would love to watch it now.
I knew that (brief) moment of (partial) glory on MTV was as close as I would ever come to being a professional rapper and decided it was time to hang that dream up for good. But I had no way of knowing that just a few years later, I would become a “wrapper.”
In October 2006, I got an invitation to the wedding of my former Boy Meets World costar, Maitland Ward. I went to Bloomingdale’s at eight o’clock the night before the wedding to get a gift, because, like an idiot, I had waited until the last minute. I picked out some gorgeous wineglasses from the couple’s registry and asked to have them gift-wrapped. When I went to the customer service department, where they did the wrapping, there was one girl working behind the counter and no one in line. Perfect, I thought. I knew Bloomingdale’s closed at nine, but wrapping one present shouldn’t take too much time.
“Hi. Can I please have this gift-wrapped?” I said to the sweet-looking girl behind the counter. “Sure. What time do you want to pick it up tomorrow?” she asked.
ME: I’m sorry. I can’t pick it up tomorrow, because this is a wedding present, and the wedding is tomorrow.
HER: Oh. Um, well, I can’t do it right now.
ME: Why? Are you wrapping other presents?
HER: No. But I just closed the registers.
ME: I thought you closed at nine?
HER: We do. But we’re really slow, and I didn’t think anyone else would be coming in, so I just decided to count my registers early so I can leave right at nine.
ME: Hmm. OK. Any chance you can just rip off some paper and hand me your scissors and some tape and I’ll wrap it myself?
HER: Sure.
She ripped off a big piece of wedding wrapping paper and handed it to me. I sat down on the floor and got to work. A few minutes later, a store manager walked by, saw me on the floor, and gasped. “What are you doing?” I didn’t want to get the girl in trouble, so I explained that I really liked to wrap presents and wanted to do it myself. He told me that they had a very strict policy not to let customers wrap their own gifts, and at that point, the girl behind the counter chimed in with some attitude directed toward me.
HER: Actually, I told her she could come back tomorrow to pick up her gift, but she said she needed it wrapped tonight.
MANAGER: So why didn’t you wrap it tonight?
HER: Uhh . . . because I already closed the registers.
MANAGER: You closed the registers? But it’s only eight thirty.
At this point, things were starting to get awkward, and I had finished wrapping my present. I stood up and said, “Thank you guys for your help. Sorry I was a bit of a pest.”
The manager apologized profusely for his employee and handed me a box of complimentary chocolates for my trouble. He looked down and noticed my wrapped gift and said, “Wow. You did that very well. You know, if you want a job, we hire people around Christmas strictly to wrap presents!”
I told him that actually sounded like fun and I might take him up on it. He handed me his business card, and I left.
For the next few days, I contemplated the idea of wrapping presents at Bloomingdale’s. I wasn’t working at the time, so it wasn’t like I wouldn’t be able to find the time in my schedule, and I did enjoy wrapping presents. After mulling it over for a couple of weeks, I couldn’t think of a downside, so I called the number on the manager’s card, and he connected me to the human resources department. I made an appointment to go talk with them and find out more details.
A few days later, I was sitting in my first-ever interview for a nonacting job, or what I call a real job. The human resources manager told me that contrary to what I had been previously told, I could not work for Bloomingdale’s strictly as a gift wrapper. I was going to have to learn all about customer service and be trained. Even though that sounded like a downside, I agreed to work there part-time for two months and see how it went.
After a few days of horribly boring computer training, I was ready to start my first day. I was told that we had to wear all black, so I put on my favorite black pencil skirt and a black silk blouse, but I thought my outfit needed a splash of color, so I wore my favorite pair of bright red heels.
I got to work, clocked in, and said hello to the people I would be working with. The first person I met was the girl who had given me the opportunity for this job by closing her registers early a few weeks before. She was very nice, but there was a little awkwardness between us, because (I assumed) she recognized me as the girl who got her in trouble with her manager. I never did tell anyone about how I got the idea to start working there, because I’m not a gossip, but I did keep my eye on her. I obviously had a fairly good reason to be skeptical about her work ethic.
When it was time for lunch, I went to the break room to heat up the soup I had brought with me from home. I saw a woman eyeing my shoes and thought, Good choice, Danielle. She walked over to me, introduced herself as the general manager, and asked which department I worked in. I told her that today was my first day in customer service, and she said, “Well, I gues
s that explains it. Our all-black dress code means just that—all black. No red shoes tomorrow, please.” Do I know how to impress the bosses or what?
I have a lot of great memories from my time at Bloomingdale’s, but my favorite stories are about how rude people can be. Like the guy who walked to my counter in a rage because he said he paid his Bloomingdale’s card off every month so he didn’t understand why his bill said “Available credit: $5,000.” I explained to him that that meant he had $5,000 worth of credit and he could spend up to $5,000 before he hit his spending limit. I also showed him where his balance due said $0.00. This didn’t make any sense to him, and he screamed at me that I was “an effing degenerate who didn’t know how to read.” I’m sure it goes without saying that he did not use the word effing—he used the real word. It was the first time a stranger had ever screamed an obscenity at me, and despite my shock, I couldn’t help but be kind of excited to have a great “working in retail” story!
The idiot, I mean, man, asked to speak with my manager, so I went into the back room to get her. She calmly walked over to him and explained his bill to him the same way I had. He still didn’t quite understand what she was saying, but he eventually walked away. I stood there with the biggest smile on my face, just to tick him off.
There was also the time a woman jumped across the counter, grabbed me by my jacket lapels, and started shaking me. A couple of times a year, Bloomingdale’s offers $25 coupons for every $100 you spend, not including tax. It’s a great deal, and a lot of people spend thousands of dollars to take advantage of the discount. Unfortunately, these sales make life miserable for everyone who works in the store. In order to get the coupons, Bloomingdale’s employees have to check every receipt for every customer from every department and calculate their total minus tax.
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