Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog

by Lisa Scottoline

  Of course, there are no commercial interruptions in Paid Programming, because it’s all commercial. It makes for a weird viewing experience. I think they should interrupt Paid Programming every ten minutes with seven minutes of a sitcom like Friends or Seinfeld. Then we could fast-forward through the sitcom to get to the commercial.

  Fun!

  But the mystery of Paid Programming pales in comparison with the other shows on the TV listings. I was skimming the guide and came across something on Channel 28 called Educational Programming (EDUC). I tuned in, but the screen was blank. I kept waiting for someone to educate me, or failing that, a guy to sell me something special, but no, nothing.

  This doesn’t bode well for our educational system.

  It’s like No TV Left Behind.

  I kept spinning the dial, as we used to say, and came upon an equally ambiguous listing on Channel 98, called Local Original Programming (LO). I tuned in, and it was showing a man and a woman talking to each other, neither of whom seemed very interested in the conversation.

  In other words, my second marriage.

  I would rename Channel 98 The Strike Two Channel (LOSER). Or maybe The What-Were-You-Thinking? Channel (GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN).

  Either way, you couldn’t pay me enough to watch that programming.

  I kept looking for something else to watch, as I had three hours of mandatory viewing left to fill, and I came across Channel 22, which purported to be Government Access Programming (GA).

  Wrong.

  It had nothing to do with government, but was Paid Programming In Disguise, namely, a series of real estate ads. (“Rear Fenced Yard!” “Six Years Young!” “Family-Friendly Spaces!”). Likewise, The Information Channel (INFO) had nothing to do with information, but was more Paid Programming In Disguise, albeit for non-profit organizations. (“Monthly Sunday Breakfast!” “Annual Spaghetti Dinner!” “Winter Dance!”) I watched for ten minutes and came to the realization that Paid Programming for non-profits is just like Paid Programming for profits, except with worse music.

  Things picked up when I got to Channel 166, The Fear Channel (FEAR). It was showing something called FearNet On Demand, so I clicked and got a menu of scary choices such as Blood & Guts, From Beyond, and Interrogation Room. I looked for The Economy, but they didn’t have it.

  That’s probably on The Apocalypse Channel (PUT ALL YOUR MONEY IN A MATTRESS).

  Or The Armageddon Channel (NOW GRAB THAT MATTRESS AND RUN FOR THE HILLS).

  Or The End-Of-Life-As-We-Know-It Channel (AND REMEMBER, THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE).

  Anyway I was too scared to click on any of the Fear categories, but I applaud the idea of a Fear Channel. Why shouldn’t there be channels devoted to the major emotions? I’d like to see a Love Channel (CHOCOLATE CAKE). And a Hate Channel (LIVER WITH ONIONS).

  And a Lust Channel. (GEORGE CLOONEY).

  (WITH CHOCOLATE CAKE).

  Creamy

  I never use any moisturizer on my face at night, but when I went to visit daughter Francesca in New York, she and her roommate smeared cream all over their faces before they went to bed.

  And their combined age is still less than mine.

  So I thought, I should do this. I should take a lesson from the kids. Maybe if I used a moisturizer at night, my face wouldn’t look like a roadmap of wrinkles, with I-95 running parallel to the turnpike on my forehead. So I went home, dug some cream out of the closet, spackled my cheeks, and went to bed. Which is just when Little Tony the puppy trotted over to my pillow and sat on my face.

  Whoever said you should use a night cream didn’t have a dog who sleeps on their cheek.

  To interrupt the story, I never had a dog sleep anywhere near my head, much less on my face. All my dogs always sleep at the foot of the bed, and it works out just fine. My feet are always warm, and I doze off listening to the rhythm of their contented snoring.

  It’s like Ambien, only with fur.

  But Little Tony, the new black-and-tan Cavalier puppy, sleeps on my pillow, with his head resting on my cheek or my neck. I know it sounds weird, but it’s cute, cozy, and fun. I highly recommend it, if your social life is at an all-time low, too.

  In any event, I forgot about this habit of Little Tony’s as I put on the night cream, so when he plopped his puppy tushie on my cheek, it took me a second or two to understand the implications. And by the time I detached his butt from my face, stray black hairs clung to my cheek like a beard.

  Not a good look, for a single gal.

  Of course, I didn’t give up, as I need both smooth skin and warm puppy, so since then I’ve gone to bed with the night cream and Little Tony, craning my neck to keep his fur off my face, or my face off his fur, generally twisting and turning most of the night until we both fall into an exhausted, albeit glossy, sleep.

  The plot thickens when Little Tony has the first of what would be three operations. As you may remember, the poor little guy had a mother who accidentally bit off his foreskin, evidently taking literally the term “castrating bitch.”

  In any event, he needed an operation to reconstruct his foreskin, but it came out too big. So he had a second operation, but it came out too small. He just had his third operation, and this time it’s just right.

  It’s like Goldilocks, only with, well, you get it.

  Why this matters is that after each of these operations, he had to wear one of those plastic Elizabethan collars for dogs, shaped like a cone over his head. He wears it for two weeks after every operation, and with three operations, he has spent six weeks of his young life in the plastic collar, or, as I call it, the Tony Coney.

  So you know where this is going.

  If you thought it was crazy to have dog face stuck to your night cream when you sleep, try wrapping that puppy in a plastic cone, slapping it on top of your face cream, and trying to catch forty winks.

  It’s fun.

  The only experience I’ve had like this happened ages ago, when I was in sixth grade, trying to clear up a case of adolescent acne by using Cuticura ointment. Please tell me I’m not the only person in the world who remembers old-school Cuticura. I went online before I wrote this and am astounded that the product still exists, though I’m sure it’s improved.

  It would have to be.

  Back then, it was a round orange tin full of smelly, gooey, black-green gunk. Somebody told my mother it was good for pimples, but they must have been criminally insane. In retrospect, it was good for greasing axles. Yet I smeared it faithfully on my skin every night, reeking like a motor pool, and every morning my skin looked worse.

  In any event, I digress. My fancy night cream is better than Cuticura, even though I get the occasional dog-hair sideburn. Two weeks later, I am sleepless but happy, but there’s not a wrinkle on Little Tony.

  So maybe it works.

  The Value of Money

  Now that we have an economic stimulus plan, everybody is trying to figure out how it will work.

  Me, I opt out.

  I’m trying to figure out how Jennifer Aniston spent $50,000 on her hair during her movie tour to London and Paris.

  I’m not sure she got her money’s worth, unless they blew her dry with gold.

  Although I admit, there’s part of me that gets it. Hair matters to women. If I won the lottery, I might pay somebody $50,000 for great hair. In fact, I bet if you asked the average woman how much she would spend to get hair like Jennifer Aniston’s, that woman would answer, “Anything.”

  So already, it’s cheaper.

  Plus, it’s a bargain if you break it down by strand. By my calculations, Jen spent only fifty cents a hair. I got that number by going online and plugging “how many hairs on a woman’s head” into Google. I didn’t bother to verify the information. This is the comic relief department, remember?

  Anyway, the computer reports that the number of hairs on a woman’s head varies with her haircolor. Who knew? A blonde has 140,000 hairs on her head, but Jennifer Aniston isn’t a natural blonde, be
cause they’re extinct. They died off millions of years ago in a meteor shower, or maybe they ran out of vegetation, scientists aren’t sure, but either way, nowadays we all highlight our hair and forget our natural color.

  People with brown or black hair have 110,000 strands, but the computer says that the average person has 100,000 hairs. I used 100,000 because it’s easier and I hate math.

  Therefore, Jen spent fifty cents a hair.

  That’s nothing. I can’t remember the last thing I bought for fifty cents. Chewing gum costs twenty-five dollars, and sandwiches are a million. Your basic bailout starts at ten billion, and we owe China twenty trillion, so why split hairs?

  Sorry.

  By the way, the same week that Jen spent $50,000 on her hair, Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady bought a Rolls-Royce Phantom for $405,000.

  He also got married to Gisele Bündchen, and I sense that these things are not unrelated. If you’re gonna marry Gisele Bündchen, you’re not carting her around in a Ford Fiesta.

  She’s tall.

  The news also reported that Tom Brady put a baby seat in the Rolls-Royce, for the child he conceived with the woman whose name he forgot when he met Gisele Bündchen.

  But that’s not my point.

  I’m trying to understand how Tom could spend $405,000 on a car. To be fair, men do love cars. I bet if you asked the average man how much he would pay to drive Gisele Bündchen around in a car, that man would answer, “Anything.”

  So $405,000 is a bargain.

  I went online to the Roll-Royce website and learned that the Phantom has four “coach” doors, which means that the back doors are hinged wrong and open in a counterintuitive way. But they’re only $100,000 a door, so it’s still cheap.

  Also the Phantom has a statuette on the hood, which looks like a Barbie doll with wings. The statuette has a name, “The Spirit of Ecstasy,” and if you take into consideration that you’re getting the car, the Barbie doll, and the pornographic name, then $405,000 is more than fair.

  Plus the Phantom has a quiet, powerful engine, specifically, “453 bhp at 5359 rpm and 531 lb/ft 720 Nm at 3500 rpm.” I have no idea what that means, but I bet it translates to five miles a gallon.

  So you see where this is going.

  Buying a car for $405,000 is as crazy as spending $50,000 on hair, and it brings me to my point:

  Cars are hair for men.

  Conversely, hair is cars for women.

  I doubt that a man would spend $50,000 on his hair, and no women I know would spend $405,000 on a car.

  Now, here’s the hard question:

  Do men care if women have great hair?

  No. If I were a woman who wanted to interest a man, I would take the $50,000 and buy the best breasts ever.

  And do women care if men have great cars?

  No. If I were a man who wanted to interest a woman, I would save the money and mow the grass.

  And what have we learned?

  The best things in life are free.

  Or plastic.

  Undergraduate

  Little Tony and I just completed our first day of puppy kindergarten, and we flunked.

  Of eight puppies, he was the worst in the class.

  Where did I go wrong?

  We were supposed to learn to Sit, but all Little Tony would do was Jump Up. We were supposed to learn Watch Me, but all he did was Watch Everybody Else. When it came to Take It, as in, wait until the command to eat his treat, he skipped the waiting part and went straight to That Tasted Great, Gimme More.

  I should have known it would go bad from the beginning, at playtime. How can you flunk playtime? All puppies do is play, chew, and fart.

  And he’s very good at two of those things.

  But at playtime, while all the puppies chased each other in a circle, nosed tennis balls around, or tugged pull toys, Little Tony sat shaking under my chair, his brown eyes round as marbles. If he was learning Look Terrified, he would have gotten an A plus.

  The teacher tells me this will get better, but I’m hard pressed to understand a dog who acts terrified in public and, at home, morphs into Little Tony Soprano.

  Oh wait.

  Maybe that’s human, after all.

  It got me thinking that it would be useful if we could send people to puppy kindergarten. How great would it be to have your toddler Sit and Stay For Just Five Minutes?

  And everybody wants a husband who can Watch Me. Too many husbands are only good at Watch Basketball. And too many wives are only good at Watch Out.

  All most people want is a little attention. If we could just get people to Watch Me, then all manner of acting out could be eliminated. Lindsay Lohan would vanish from the tabloids. Paula Abdul would spontaneously combust.

  I’d love to expand the curriculum, too. I wouldn’t mind a guy who obeyed Listen To Me. Or better yet, Tell Me I’m Thin. And I’m sure that men can think of a number of commands they’d like women to obey, but I’m guessing that they’re unprintable.

  Also the teacher at the obedience school told us that it follows the principles of Nothing in Life is Free. They mean this literally. Nothing-in-life-is-free even has its own website, NILIF.com, and ironically you can go visit it, for free.

  I grew up hearing that nothing in life is free, but that turned out not to be true. Plenty in life is free. Going for a walk is free. Hugging is free. Money is free, if you’re AIG.

  Anyway, the bottom line of nothing-in-life-is-free for dogs is that you have to figure out what your puppy loves, and every time before you give it to him, you have to make him do something you want, like sit, stay, or please God stop having accidents all over the rug.

  It seems kind of hardcore, for a puppy whose black-and-tan coat makes him look like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup with legs.

  So I tried nothing-in-life-is-free on Little Tony, because we’re supposed to practice. One of Little Tony’s favorite things, after anything edible, is sitting on my lap on the couch. Every night after dinner, the puppy will actually run to the couch, plop his tush on the floor, and wag his tail like a windshield wiper.

  Adorable.

  Except that I work a lot, so if I’m sitting, I’m writing a book on a laptop, with the TV on. Now I have a puppy who’s a laptop, but it’s fun to type over a puppy head and my lap is warm at all times. Okay, maybe the space bar gets hit a thousand extra times, and my chase scenes are way too mellow, but it’s a small price to pay.

  I may switch to greeting cards.

  Anyway, I tried to get Tony to obey Watch Me so we could sit on the couch, but no luck. He watched the other dogs, the cats, and even Dancing With The Stars. I tried for half an hour, then gave up. Meantime, he collapsed into an exhausted sleep, spreading out like melted chocolate, and I got no work done. My lap stayed cold, and I even missed Castle, a TV show about the exciting life of a bestselling writer.

  Castle doesn’t have a dog.

  Poor thing.

  Mom, Interrupted

  So I’m in New York, visiting daughter Francesca for the weekend, which is just the thing to remind you that your child is more adult than you.

  She drinks stronger coffee, wears high heels with style, and could put on liquid eyeliner, blind. Me, I’d blind myself with liquid eyeliner.

  We tool around the bustling streets, talking and walking with our two puppies in tow, Pip and Little Tony. We pick up after them, which is a change for me, because at home I let them go in the backyard and call it compost.

  Little Tony, unaccustomed to life in the big city, alternates between barking and cowering. His threat detector is topsyturvy, so he growls at passing mastiffs while pigeons send him scurrying in terror to my feet. I try to not to reward fearful behavior, but it’s nice to still have something left to protect.

  My daughter is on her own.

  And it’s a good thing, but surprising.

  All the things I used to do for her over the years, she now does for herself. I know it sounds obvious but it’s still miraculous to me, if only bec
ause I can remember her first step. Now she does her own laundry, cooking, vacuuming, clothes to the dry cleaner, hanging up pictures, bed-making, getting prescriptions filled, and all of it, in the toughest, and most glorious, city on the planet.

  New York doesn’t intimidate her, even though the first week she was there, she witnessed a violent mugging on her street, a purse-snatching during which the woman’s jaw was broken. A TV news crew arrived on the scene and interviewed Francesca, and she sent me the videotape from the station’s website. Great.

  Welcome to New York.

  And it’s time to let go. Again.

  I’ve written before about how parenting is watching your child take a series of baby steps, all of them away from you, which is as it should be. It’s both the happiest and saddest moments in the life of any mother and father. And it only gets harder, by which I mean, if you think letting them go to college was hard, try letting them move to New York, where it’s not always easy for the puppies to tell the pigeons from the mastiffs.

  Last night before bed, Francesca showed me a video game she plays on her BlackBerry, in which you make as many words as you can in thirty seconds, and as you get better, you advance through different seasons while the screen changes from winter to summer and back again. I normally hate video games, but I couldn’t resist cuddling up with my big little girl, watching the seasons change in our hands.

  My high score was 45. Hers was 4350.

  For once, I’m not exaggerating.

  I think we moms and dads play a sort of parental video game, where we complete one year to advance to the next, and all the time the years get harder and the little video rewards of fake-gold treasure chests or kelly-green shamrocks flash on the screen only to evaporate instantly, too fast to see. And so we tend to appreciate them in retrospect only, when the game is over and we play I Remember.

  I remember your first word. Your first step. Your college graduation.