The morning after my cat Helen was euthanized, I was in the kitchen performing some well-deserved self-care by making myself a delicious and nourishing meal (microwaving something from the Hot Pockets family of products) while drinking a diet water and minding my own fucking business, when I felt the air around my swollen ankles grow cold. I looked around, shuddering as I waited for the thing that had obviously come to kill me to show its evil face. Sunlight poured through the window over the sink, heat radiated from the hot oven, Peabo Bryson warbled warmly from the countertop speaker that doesn’t really work: all in all, I was in a downright pastoral setting, straight out of a ’50s-era sitcom, and definitely not in the kind of place you’d expect some rotten, rapidly decomposing corpse to come shambling into. I mean, do ghosts even like Crystal Light?
For weeks after that, I’d walk into a room and see a clinically obese gray shadow lurking ominously in a corner near the floor, or catch a whiff of off-brand tuna in the air where I’d least expect it. Could a pair of my moldy underpants that had accidentally fallen behind the hamper and been lodged there for days be the cause of the fish-market smell wafting from my bedroom? Of course! But is it also completely plausible that it might be the stench left behind by a rancid cat ghost? Absolutely.
*
An aside:
Years ago, right after I moved into my last apartment in Chicago, the one I expected to die alone in to the soundtrack of an NCIS marathon, I thought I had a ghost. Several nights a week, I would be awakened from a dead sleep by this—I don’t know how to describe it without sounding like a fucking moron, but I’ll try—vibrational energy? I’d be knocked out atop a pile of pizza boxes and magazines, then be jolted fully awake by a humming and swaying feeling in the air.
I am a dumb person who doesn’t understand building structure or architecture, but it didn’t seem like the kind of thing a fucking mid-rise apartment building should be doing. It was like my room was droning at me. Every morning while getting ready for work in those days, I would listen to this ridiculous show on Kiss FM hosted by a dude I’m pretty sure called himself Drex. You know what makes me wistful for a happier, simpler time? Thinking about when I could actually crack a fucking smile at prank mother-in-law calls on drive-time radio shows before living turned to hell and I had to be mad about everything all the goddamned time. You know what I listen to now? Pod Save America, on a phone I come perilously close to dropping in a toilet full of feces every single morning. Because we live in a fiery hellscape, and I don’t know what the three branches of government do exactly, so I need three IPA bros to explain our crumbling democracy to me between ads for sheets and Bluetooth speakers while I wonder which of the six washcloths scattered around the shower is mine.
So early one morning Drex on Kiss FM tells this riveting story to the other hosts (you know how those shows are: pop hits interspersed with prank calls and ticket giveaways, and they feature a woman of color who is funnier than the host is, but who is forced to play sidekick, and featuring “my old pal Clown Car with the traffic and weather on the twos!”) about how he had a ghost in his place. And he knew it was a ghost because he’d come home after work and cabinets would be hanging open and shit would be rearranged, and no one else had a key to his apartment. I immediately glanced around my clothing-strewn apartment and wondered, “Was that novelty Taco Bell bag filled with Corn Chex cereal on my nightstand when I left yesterday?” Drex had consulted with a paranormal expert who told him that the best way to deal with a ghost is to firmly yet politely demand that they leave, because apparently ghosts have some strict moral code that they are required to adhere to. And so, the day before, when he’d gotten home from work to find yet another rearranging of his belongings, he yelled at the ghost to leave him alone, and lo and behold, IT DID. I was gobsmacked.
I was brought up in church, but taken there by people who smoked and drank and had multiple children out of wedlock. Whatever lingering side effects I have from my many years of being expected to recite the Apostles’ Creed from memory by a woman who was probably high with a cigarette in her mouth, manifest themselves in this way: I’m not really religious and I am ambivalent about church except for the music, of which I have many secret playlists that I listen to on the regular, but I also don’t like to mess with “the devil.” I mean, he’s definitely not real, but just in case? I’m not fucking with a Ouija board or pretending to cast spells I don’t actually understand. I do believe ghosts can be real, especially because I have very little tolerance for “science” and like to leave inexplicable things unexplained. Life is just sexier and more mysterious when the flickering lights could be a poltergeist rather than a fluctuation in voltage or a loose cord.
Okay, so, in the wee hours of every morning, I would be jostled awake by this low-pitched hum, literally feeling my bed swaying beneath me like Rose clinging to that Titanic door. My brain, molded by years of grainy exorcism videos on 20/20, immediately leapt to the conclusion that my apartment was haunted by a pissed-off demon. This was pre-cats, before I full became a spinster witch, so it wasn’t like I had a creature around who could tip me off. By the third or fourth night of this, I was sufficiently spooked, trolling Craigslist for mediums on my lunch breaks and googling “can you legally break a lease due to supernatural inhabitants.” Then I remembered Drex. And his advice to, you know, politely ask a ghost to leave. Sure, I could’ve looked up banishing spells or bought some potions from the occult store, but this is where I remind you that the lingering effects of Many Years of Bible School kept me from dabbling in any Satanry. Or perceived Satanry.
That night, I performed my usual evening routine: dinner for one consumed zombie-style over the sink; many episodes of reality television devoured with rapt attention, my face pressed against the television; falling asleep fully clothed, with my phone in my hand. And there it was again, at two or three in the morning, a loud humming slash vibrating that made my bed quiver so hard I bolted upright the minute it started. I lay there massaging the sleep out of my weary eyes and suddenly remembered what Drex had said to do: acknowledge the ghost’s presence, then politely demand that he leave. Easy, right? Please pack your things and get the fuck out, sir, I have to be at work in four hours! I sat up and looked around to see if I could make out any floating Big Gulps or candy wrappers in the dim light provided by the streetlamps in the alley my apartment overlooked. There were no tipped-over bottles or clouds of ecto-mist swirling near the baseboards, nothing other than that weird, ominous moaning and the rattling of the walls that accompanied it. I cleared my throat and in my most authoritative third-grade teacher voice said, “Okay, I hear you. I’m tired of this. Please leave me alone.”
The wailing continued. Louder, I declared: “I pay six hundred and ninety dollars to live in this asbestos closet and I don’t need a roommate. You have to leave!” The droning paused, and for a millisecond I felt like a capable person who could solve her own problems; then it came roaring back even more intensely. I am not so attached to living that I would willingly survive a supernatural terror that would torment me for the rest of my days, so I started feeling around in the sheets for a stray sock to asphyxiate myself with in case some monster with dripping fangs rounded the corner ready to eat me. Bitch, I can’t fight! When the zombies come or the aliens land or whatever dystopian shit that is bound to happen in our lifetime happens, I’m not stockpiling buckets of slop and batteries or any of that doomsday shit. I will be in the fetal position somewhere waiting for them to lobotomize me. I gave it one last try, plugging my ears with my fingers and shouting, “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” at the top of my lungs. The noise stopped immediately. I couldn’t even believe it! First, I couldn’t believe that I had anything in my useless collection of trash and novelty gifts that would be of any interest to someone who had actually been to hell, but more important than that, it seemed unfathomable to me that I could then convince that someone to leave my apartment! I am a horrible negotiator! I pulled the blanket over my head and slept the sleep of the
saved and thankful.
The ghost appeared to be gone for good; make me an honorary fucking Ghostbuster! A week later I was downstairs in the lobby deciding whether or not to take someone else’s Cosmopolitan magazine upstairs when this good-looking young dude in a cardigan smiled and said hi to me. He flipped his locks over his shoulder and noted my open mailbox door, then asked if I lived in 309. I don’t trust the motives of attractive people, so I just stared at him with my mouth open, hoping he would walk away and forget that he caught me reading someone else’s steamy sex tips. “I’m in 409,” he said, unprompted. “Right on top of you.” Hot men know what the fuck they’re doing when they say shit like this, with their perfect teeth shimmering through their perfectly groomed beards. I was supposed to think about him grinding on top of me, WHICH I IMMEDIATELY DID. “Anyway,” he continued, “I heard you yelling the other night. Sorry about that. I didn’t know you could hear the reverb from my bass amp so much. I had a friend come soundproof my place. Has it been less noticeable?” And this is why I stopped taking my ass to church. Would a loving God actually humiliate me like this??
*
Obviously, I am an expert on ghosts. And Helen was clearly still hovering in the drafty corners of the house, clucking softly to herself about my disappointing choices and willing the other cats to do her bidding. Speaking of Bootie and Coco, and their staunch resistance to my soppy desperation, they are my lady’s cats. I live with them, I tag along when they have to go to the vet, I brush them off the countertops when they’re trying to get at whatever waterlogged food is rotting in the sink, but they are not my cats. I didn’t pick them. I didn’t lock eyes with them through the bars of a shelter cage and feel that little furry paw wrap around my heartstring and gently tug at it. They were already living here when I arrived from Chicago. They had their own nooks and crannies and hideaways, their own schedules and patterns and antipathy toward another human taking up the space they’d already designated as their own. So after Helen died, I needed to get a new Helen.
But what if I replaced her with a dumb, happy dog? What must it be like to come home to an animal who is overjoyed upon your return, who is grateful for you and the wonderfully cozy and sheltered life you have provided for them? Imagine coming home at the end of the day to the aggressively wagging tail of a creature who spent the entirety of their waking hours dreaming of your tires crunching over the leaves in the driveway! What a dream to have a companion who not only worships the very ground I walk on, but also would rescue me from a well if I happened to slip and fall down one!
As I have mentioned too many times, I worked in an animal hospital for fourteen years, which means I know everything there is to know about pet ownership. I wish I was exaggerating. In a job where every day presented a new and confounding horror, one of the things that continued to surprise me was how often people would pick up the phone and actually risk embarrassing themselves in front of another person to ask basic pet care information they could just google to figure out without having to suffer through a painful human interaction. Because countless people decided to waste their anytime minutes calling in to ask me whether plastic food bowls would be harmful to their beloved dachshund, or if prong collars are safe, or what prophylactic flea and tick topical treatments work best, I am full of useless trivia about the most basic shit a child could probably tell you about dogs.
“Tell me all the things I need to have a dog!” was a common request, especially from people who shouldn’t own one. The answer generally boils down to these things:
a crate large enough for the dog to comfortably stand and turn around in
a soft, adjustable collar that fits snugly, but that you can get two fingers under
several leads, but not a retractable one, especially if you’re going to text or do some other distracted shit while walking your dog
bedding
puppy pads, because that dog is definitely going to shit all over your house
large water and food bowls
food and treats, which, wow oh wow, the fucking rabbit hole you could go down. You can kill yourself researching the best organic, grain-free kibble or buy logs of raw food for upward of a hundred dollars a month, and no matter what you choose, there will still be some asshole on the Internet trying to convince you you’re doing it wrong
a ton of chew toys
medicine! Your dog will need all kinds of medicines! It will not be cheap!
baby-proofed kitchen cabinets
a better hiding place for your delicious rat poison
plastic baby gates to keep the dog from ruining all your shit
while you’re doing that, put a fence around your house!
a good groomer, because have you ever tried to wash a goddamn dog?
a trainer and/or classes
day care! Dog walkers! Boarding facilities!
a city license, if you’re a little Goody Two-shoes
a washer and dryer
a commitment to picking up anything you don’t want destroyed by slimy dog teeth every single minute that creature is loose in your home
the firm discipline to put all your food and drugs away the minute you are finished using them
an unlimited credit card
no discernible social life
stamina to walk several miles a day, in the rain and snow and cold
the patience of a saint
Sure, you don’t have to have or do all those things to be a dog owner. Crust punks on the street in Seattle have dogs! But to be a good dog owner who isn’t annoyed all the time, you have to do/have/be at least most of them.
I remember one snowy day I was driving to work, and I used to live on top of the fucking lake, because in Chicago it was possible to get an apartment on the beach for cheap if you really lowered your expectations for what the words “beachside living” can mean, and this person (midwestern winters render everyone genderless; in the month of January, we are just amorphous shapeshifting piles of down filling and wool) was waiting for their dog to poop in horizontally blowing ice spittle while struggling to remain upright against the biting wind as icy waves crashed onto the frozen sand behind them, the tattered end of the blue newspaper wrapper clutched in their mitten barely visible through the storm. I sat at the stoplight where Sheridan Road curves and turns into Evanston, fingertips pressed to the heat vent from which a whisper of anemic warm air trickled out, and chuckled softly to myself. “Man, fuck dogs.”
But I’ve never had a cat that let me put clothes on it. Or performed any cool tricks. Or came running when I called. Or accompanied me on a long, peaceful walk at dusk. (I’m never actually doing that, but I would like to have the option.) I’ve done all this exhausting work for the animal hospital, and been in this field for my entire adult life, and I innately understand what a bad idea it is to commit to an animal if you have any intention at all of living a normal, carefree life. And yet I was waking up thinking: “Wouldn’t it be cute if there was a little doggie snoring on my pillow right now?” Then I’d get up to go to the bathroom and survey the home that is a dangerous canine death trap littered with poisonous, flammable choking hazards and mentally stitch together all the outstanding accounts receivable it would take from my new life as a “freelance writer” to pay for a visit to Animal 911 in the wee hours of the morning, and I’d laugh myself almost to death.
How many times have I dropped half a Vicodin on the floor and then spent twenty minutes blindly stumbling around in search of my glasses before locating them and spending another half hour looking for a tiny yellow stump of a pill? If a dog lived here, he’d find it and wolf it down before I’d even have a chance to realize it had slipped from my gnarled grasp. My days of carelessly leaving loaves of raisin bread on the dining room table would be over! Can I live in a world where the peanut butter has to be put away while I’m thinking about whether or not I want to make another sandwich? Am I cut out for the kind of life led by a person who doesn’t forget there’s an irresistible pack of Trident
in the bottom of a tote bag tossed in a heap next to the back door? I don’t think I am! I know that cat people get a bad rap, but do I really have it in me to become a dog person?
We went to the SPCA on one snowy February morning, a couple weeks before my birthday. I talked my lady into looking at a dog, with no pressure to bring one home, unless I saw one that I fell in love with and couldn’t live without. I’d gotten myself worked up in the weeks before, scrolling through dogs on Petfinder, fantasizing about little dogs I could dress up in teenie-weenie jackets and train to be mean to everyone but me. I even went so far as to e-mail the foster parent of a fat gray-haired Chihuahua mix named Coraline who was a million years old and had cancerous mammary tumors that needed to be removed and who was so stumpy and cute that I almost cried while reading her bio. I was so smitten, I considered letting a dog interview me for the opportunity to destroy my furniture and checkbook!! But she got adopted (are there other completely naive and irrational people in this town?) before I could put on my best suit and tie to go to whatever meth lab she was staying in to see if they’d consider letting me pay two hundred dollars to take her to my house.
That’s really how we ended up at the shelter, because I had been rejected by a dog who couldn’t read the love letter I’d tapped out on my cracked phone screen to win her over. As Lois at the front desk led us to the kennel, I felt my heart clench. I was powerless against the slobbery little beards and juicy sad eyes of the whimpering dogs. As we walked in, some kind of giant ridgeback mix launched himself at the cage door, gnashing his teeth and barking, up on his hind legs. “Not him!” Kirsten squeaked, hopping away from the spittle flying out of his cage. We walked by bored bulldogs and hyperactive hounds until finally we reached a heartbreakingly adorable cattle dog mix who had, judging by the size of her swollen nipples, definitely given birth in the recent past. She had some country-ass name, Backhoe or Wheelbarrow or some other farm shit, and I wanted her desperately. She looked at me like I was made out of sausage. I signaled to Lois that we wanted to take her to one of the soundproof SVU interview rooms, where I assumed she’d grill me on my whereabouts before slamming my head into a table and offering me a Styrofoam cup of coffee from which her partner would later extract my DNA to use in court to convict me of a crime they framed me for.
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