The dog greeted me at the door this evening sporting what I first took to be blood-covered teeth.
"What happened?" I shrieked. "Let Mommy look in your mouth," I begged, trying to pry her suddenly-clamped jaws open while frantically and irrationally surveying the living room for the remains of whatever she had killed.
Similar requests are always met with extreme resistance. This is a dog who has, inexplicably, always responded to the question "Hey, can I look in your ear?" by becoming airborne and flying out of the room at the speed of a Formula One race car. No matter how casually I say it, no matter how soft and non-threatening the delivery, no matter who says it, (it was just too tempting to let friends and family in on her secret phobia) she flees and, when located, serves up malevolent glares.
There is not and never has been any reason to perform an invasive, painful inspection of her ears. She is lively, healthy and far better groomed than I could ever hope to be. She adores her groomer and shows off for her veterinarian. As she has moved from puppyhood through adolescence and into young adult doghood, though, she has evidently never gotten over the psyche-scarring notion of showing humans what I assume is a private area. Go figure. Lie on the floor, flat on your back, displaying your wares like a centerfold in a canine version of Penthouse, without shame, but don't dare let anyone lift up your ear flap.
Her breed is a mystery to me anyway, and I've had members of her tribe since I was a child. Rather than bark, the last one chose to stand on her hind legs and swat at wind chimes hanging by the back door to announce her desire to come inside. The one before that could open the refrigerator, steal leftovers and shut the door behind him to delay discovery of his crimes.
This one showed me how to open child-proof pill containers last year. I watched her take a bottle of Excedrin Migraine off a table, examine it briefly, then squeeze it just below the neck, immediately popping the cap off. Transfixed, I gave her some more to open. One by one, the vessels fell -- aspirin, Advil PM, Vitamin D, Vitamin E. Now I get her to open anything that defeats me. "Maybe the pharmaceutical companies should hire you as a quality assurance engineer," I often suggest. "You could stand to get a job. I really don't think the furniture needs someone to hold it down all day. I've never actually seen the couch floating in midair."
So. Bloody maw.
After I hunted her down in her usual touchdown site -- my bed -- and managed to restrain her long enough to peel back her lips, I realized it wasn't blood but something waxy and fragrant. A candle? A jar of raspberry jam?
Then, in the waning light, I spotted something dark and chewed-looking in the middle of the bed, next to the day's selection of ratty stuffed friends and faux-bones. Formerly a clever little tube of Neutrogena Revitalizing Lip Balm, (Sunny Berry) with a set-in knob that dispenses the perfect amount of this most perfect product, it had been reduced to a flattened, battered corpse, riddled with tooth marks. The cap, however, was in mint condition.
"This is your m.o.," I snorted. "The popped-off top, the punctures where you squeezed the container. Not to mention your rose-colored teeth. What's the matter -- you couldn't figure out how to operate the knob to get the stuff out? And by the way, how did you get this out of the bathroom without knocking over the basket where the makeup is? Hey, can I look in your ear?"
After I apologized for teasing her, we made up. After all, I might need someone to show me how to open some orange juice I just bought. Those plastic peel-and-pull tabs underneath the cartons' caps are weird.
