Date Night With the Empty Nest Folks

             
         The waiter at our favorite restaurant brought a bowl water for Joey. He told us about the Shar Pei his roommate had rescued. Shar Pei’s are the large dogs with all the loose skin folding around their faces. The original dogs came from China and look nothing like the designer dogs the West has produced.                                                                                                                

“They have all sorts of health problems,” he said, “blindness, renal failure, yeast infections in their ears.” 

“All because of human interference in the breed,” I said. He nodded and left with our order.

“Poodles are the same way,” my husband said, “if you don’t shave their butts, they can’t take a crap.” 

I’ve wanted a standard poodle for a long time, but Gerald always nixes that idea. His mom had a poodle. One of his childhood laments is how shaving the dog’s butt was his responsibility. 

“They’d die without humans caring for their butts,” he said.

“Poodles living in the wild would groom each other,” I said.

“There are no poodles living in the wild.”

“If there were, they’d clean each other’s butts. It’s like alcoholics and their enablers,” I said. “You enabled your mom’s dog to not clean his own butt by paying too much attention to that area. Own it.”

“That makes no sense.” He looked away, but not before I saw the teeniest smile.

“It’s perfectly logical.” 

The waiter brought our dinner and Joey sat at attention for his share.              

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