I Wish Karma Was Real

A few weeks ago, I was driving along the highway when I caught sight of a large dog walking in the grass by the road.

I stopped my car by the side of the road and approached the dog slowly. Fortunately, it didn't growl at me or try to bite me. Instead, it seemed timid and frightened. I couldn't just leave the dog there, because I knew that the image of it wandering alone by the highway would haunt me forever. It made me think of last year, when I saw an already-injured bird die after it was run over by a car. I screamed when it happened, and then I cried because I didn't save it. I had to make up for that now.

I managed to coax the dog into the backseat of my car. The dog smelled so bad that I had to open my windows, even though it was cold. She (I think it was a girl) was wet and muddy, and a small, selfish part of me lamented over the fact that my brand-new, sparkling clean car seats were now dirty. It seemed like the dog had been outside for days. I stopped by a convenience store and bought a cup of water and a bag of chips for the dog. Judging by the way the dog gobbled down almost all the chips, it seemed like she hadn't eaten for a few days either.

The dog didn't have a collar or any tags, and there were no houses near the place where I found her. It made me think that some evil monster had dumped the dog by the highway.

I wanted to take the dog home with me, but my building doesn't allow dogs. It doesn't seem fair that my neighbors, who scatter cigarette butts and trash all over the parking lot and wake me up at 2 A.M. with their parties, are allowed to live there, but dogs are not.

I took the dog to an animal shelter nearby. They were very nice and assured me that they would take good care of her. I asked if she would be euthanized eventually, but they said they hadn't had to euthanize any of the animals in more than a year (the nearest no-kill shelter was more than an hour away; the dog was getting antsy in my backseat, and I wasn't even sure if they would take her). I was sorry to say good-bye to the dog, but I left hoping and praying that she would find a good home.

The whole situation made me feel sad and angry. I felt sad that I couldn't adopt the dog myself. I felt angry at the scum that abandoned her. I also felt angry at all the drivers that had passed the dog (she was very large, so it would have been impossible to miss her) without stopping.

It made me wish that karma was real and that eventually whoever left that beautiful dog by the side of the road would get what he or she deserved. But sometimes I wonder if karma is real. Not long after I helped that dog, I came down with the flu, which meant I spent almost half of my Christmas vacation in bed. I had all these plans for my time off, too. (That's also partly why I haven't blogged in a month.)

It made me think of how I tried to help people before. Once I helped push an old man in his wheelchair across the street, but then he got mad at me because I wouldn't stay and "socialize" with him. I used to bring doughnuts to a homeless person, until he got mad and demanded that I bring him sandwiches instead. I offered to help an old woman struggling to go down the stairs with her cane, but she screamed at me and threatened to hit me with the cane.

I don't wish bad things on any of those people, but situations like those make me wonder if being a good person is worth it. It's not like I hope to get something out of helping people (although a "thank you" would be nice once in a while), but sometimes it seems like good things only happen to the most selfish and inconsiderate people in the world (like one person who shall remain nameless, but whose name rhymes with "chump".)

What about you? Do you think karma is real? Did your attempt to help someone else ever backfire?

See the World

Every time I take a flight, I think of the best ways to deal with people who steal my seat on the plane and then refuse to move: 1) Move to another seat; 2) Head-butt them; 3) Smear airplane food all over their clothes; 4) Make them listen to my Nothing but Britney and Nothing but Taylor Swift playlists.

The last time I took a flight was a few weeks ago, and just as I feared, some jerk insisted on taking my seat because she couldn't bear being apart from her boyfriend for a few hours. I should have put my foot down and made her move, because I paid extra money to reserve my seat in advance. That was MY seat, and she had no right to take it. And the thing is, these losers steal my seat and then refuse to move almost EVERY TIME I TAKE A FLIGHT.

Instead, I ended up sitting in a seat nearby, which turned out to be broken because I couldn't adjust it. I spent half the flight dry heaving into a barf bag, partly because I got airsick, and partly because I was sick of the couple sitting beside me who looked like they were sucking each other's lips off.

When I was at the airport, I tried to buy a box of Band-Aids because I accidentally cut my finger opening a candy bar. (Maybe I should start eating fruit more often?) But one small box of Band-Aids cost more than six dollars! After the flight I had, I was ready to start head-butting people. But I didn't.

I think what was really bothering me was the fact that I had to take a week off from school in order to go to my parents' home in another state and take care of their dogs while my parents went on a trip. They travel frequently, and almost every time they do, I go to their home to take care of the dogs.

I love Neurotic Jr. and Jane Dog very much, even though Jane Dog threw up on my jeans once. I don't want them to be put in a kennel, because I know they would be very frightened and unhappy. I wish I could have them with me all the time, but my building doesn't allow dogs. (I think they should throw out the people who scatter trash all over the hallway and pass out in front of my door and let the dogs live in the building instead. The dogs would be much less trouble and less likely to get drunk on a regular basis.)

But it's a huge hassle to keep taking time off from work. Taking care of two dogs also takes up a lot of time, so much so that I was barely able to work on my dissertation while I was there. It also bothered me that I've hardly done any traveling at all in more than a decade.

I went to New Orleans last year, but that wasn't my choice; it was for a relative's wedding. I went to Kentucky to review AP English literature exams, but that was for work. While other people in their twenties went on road trips or backpacked through Europe, I was shelving books at a bookstore, folding clothes at a clothing store, teaching undergrads and grading papers, tutoring, teaching high school students, and doing work for my website job. I was determined to be independent by earning my own money.

I used to envy the customers at the bookstore who bought maps and guides to other cities or countries. I bought travel narratives by people like Alice Steinbach, who wrote two wonderful books about what it was like to be a single woman traveling on her own. I dreamed about the places that I wanted to visit someday, if only I had the time and money: New York City. Boston. Seattle. London. Rome. Tokyo. Madrid. And so on and so on.

I have some money saved up that's separate from my emergency fund. I've finally decided that sometime this year (maybe during the summer) I'm going to take a weekend trip to New York City, because I've always wanted to go there. (I'd like to stay longer, but I can only afford to go there for a few days.) I'm going to be the typical tourist: big shorts, I Heart New York T-shirt, camera, maps, and all. Even though I am and always will be a workaholic with an aversion to vacations (I use school vacations to catch up on work and clean my apartment), I still think I should start traveling more and see the world. I think I've earned that right.

What about you? Do you do a lot of traveling? If you do, where have you gone? If you haven't, where do you think you'd like to go?

Stop and Sniff the Fire Hydrant

For a few weeks this summer I was dog-sitting for my parents. They own two dogs, a Bolognese that I refer to in this blog as Neurotic Jr. and a Shetland Sheepdog (a sheltie) that I refer to as Jane Dog. My parents live in a different state, but they let me keep the dogs for a while and I managed to work out a deal with the landlord so that the dogs could stay with me. A close relative kept the dogs company when I had to work.

I thought that taking care of the dogs might give me some new writing material, like those inspirational dog vs. owner stories, where the dog is difficult to live with at first but ends up inspiring the owner to write inspirational stories about dogs. I thought that it might give me a new perspective on writing, because dogs like to stop, sniff, and examine everything; I thought that maybe people should try doing that too (except for the sniffing other dogs' butts part). But it didn't quite work out that way.

I took them to a small dog park on a regular basis. Even though several dog owners in Chicago live in apartment buildings, the people who own/manage those buildings freak out if the dogs venture near the small patches of grass in front of the buildings. The people will put up small fences around the grass. Or they'll put up signs that say stuff like "Keep dogs off grass" or "No Dogs allowed" (along with a picture of a dog with a big X over it) or "Please curb your dog" or "Don't even THINK about letting your dog defile the grass because otherwise I WILL come after you...and your little dog too!"

Neurotic Jr. is incredibly spoiled, because my parents treat her like a small child and refuse to discipline her. That may be why she insisted on being carried for most of the time during our "walks."

Me: Come on, Neurotic Jr.! Carrying you would defeat the purpose of the walk!
Neurotic Jr: (blinks at me and refuses to move)
Me: Oh, for Pete's sake!  Fine, I'll carry you!
Woman passing by: Oh, she's so cute! But why are you carrying her?
Me: I think she likes the view from up here. Or maybe I'm just a chump.

Jane Dog loves to bark at everything, which is the nature of shelties. Whenever a garbage truck, motorcycle, or bird passed by, her reaction was: "ArfarfarfarfarfARF!"

She also had this embarrassing habit of sniffing other people who passed by, so that sometimes a person would say, "Hey!" And I'd laugh sheepishly and say, "Oh, sorry! My dog didn't mean to stick her nose up your skirt (or shorts if it was a guy, because Jane Dog likes to sniff everyone). I guess she just likes you."

Of course, Neurotic Jr. would always throw one of her tantrums and Jane Dog would always go off into a barking fit in front of a person with the Perfect Dog, as in the kind of canine that is so well-behaved that it views barking as something that only "common" dogs do. The owner would wow the other owners with all sorts of tricks that Perfect Dog could do, like fetching a ball, rolling over and playing dead, and other things to show off its intelligence, like break dancing.

If you think I'm exaggerating about the break dancing, here's a video of a dog doing the merengue. Neurotic Jr. and Jane Dog would never consent to letting me put either of them in a skirt. Jane Dog would find some way to pull it off and then bark at it to make it go away. Neurotic Jr. would become hysterical and run all over the place, being sure to leave paw prints everywhere, if I came near her with one of those little doggie outfits.



When Neurotic Jr. refused to move and looked up at me as if to say, "You didn't really think I'd walk this time, did you? Have I taught you nothing?" and Jane Dog nearly broke free from her leash because she was barking her head off at a bench, Perfect Dog's owner would look at me and say, "That's quite the pair you have there!"

"Um, yeah," I'd say.

Perfect Dog would come running up at that moment and drop the ball in front of his owner's feet, panting, and he always looked like he was laughing at my dogs, as if to say, "Hahahahaha, you WISH you were as obedient as me, LOSERS!"

Neurotic Jr. would growl at him as if to say, "You want a piece of me? Why don't you come over here and I'll play fetch with your tail."

"I trained mine when he was still a puppy," Perfect Dog's owner would say. "Maybe you should look into obedience school."

"Uh-huh," I'd respond, even though what I was really thinking was, "WhatEVER, dude. Maybe you should look into getting a new personality. And get one for your dog, too."

But even though Neurotic Jr. and Jane Dog have their quirks, I love them anyway because really, who can resist adorable, huggable dogs who are always happy to see you? I wish I could keep them all the time, but my apartment is too small for two dogs. Plus my arms would get really tired from carrying Neurotic Jr. all the time.

What about you? Do you have pets? If you are a pet owner, do you ever find yourself incorporating animals into your stories? What do you think of those inspirational pet memoirs?

Side note: I would have included pictures of Neurotic Jr. and Jane Dog on the blog, but like me, they prefer to remain anonymous. But I think they'd be more willing to sit still for pictures and let me post the photos on my blog if they got more doggie treats and tummy rubs.

Tummy Rubs and the Bichon Blitz

My parents have two dogs, one of which is a Bolognese (which is a smaller version of the Bichon). In order to protect their privacy, I will refer to the Bolognese as Neurotic Jr. and the other dog as Jane Dog in this blog.

As dogs, they have a fairly easy life, partly because they can sleep whenever they want and they get treats just for being cute. But they have their own ways of dealing with stress if it does come up. For example, Jane Dog is extremely clingy. Whenever I visit my parents, she follows me around everywhere. When I come back after going out, she immediately rolls over onto her back, demanding a tummy rub. When she does get it, she gets this look of pure bliss on her face, as if she's saying, "Ahhhh....."

Neurotic Jr., on the other hand, hates baths. After I bathe her, she goes berserk every time. She does something called the Bichon blitz, where she tears around the room, rolls around on the carpet, and runs up and down the stairs in a fury, as if she's saying, "I can't believe you BATHED me! How UNDIGNIFIED!" Then she crawls under a chair and glares at me for the next hour, as if she's saying, "I wouldn't turn your back if I were you."

Here's a video of a dog doing the Bichon blitz. It's not a video of Neurotic Jr. I found it on Youtube. (The dog's name is Ditka.)



I, on the other hand, am not a dog and therefore do not enjoy tummy rubs. I don't even like hugs because I could get the flu from those. I have done some version of the Bichon blitz, though. It usually happens after I've done a bunch of work and downed several cups of caffeine. But I have my own ways of relieving stress.

One way is by going to my favorite place to write: the coffeehouse. I also like going to the gym, where I have a student discount. It's a worthy investment because I can burn calories, build muscle, and blow off steam. It's also a good place to check out muscular guys with cute ... um ... shorts. (I fell off an elliptical machine the other day because I was looking at one of the hot guys. I did get his attention, just not in the way I wanted.)

At the gym I can get my mind off my problems, at least temporarily. And the endorphins make me feel better too. There's a pool at my gym, but I haven't tried it yet. One reason is because I'm not a very good swimmer; I really only know how to doggy paddle. I even kind of pant a little when I try to doggy paddle from one end of the pool to another, and it's not very attractive. I can't really do the butterfly stroke that people do when they swim laps.

Besides, I'm afraid that if I do show up at the pool in my swimsuit, all the guys will take one look at me, start pointing and laugh. Then they'll all fall into the pool, one by one, just like the women did in that birth control commercial. But then one of the guys might still be laughing and end up choking on pool water, and I'll have to pull him out of the pool.

I'll try to revive him with the CPR skills I learned in a first aid class, but I took the class ten years ago and I really only remember how to do the Heimlich maneuver. And anyway, we only practiced on dummies, not people. So I'm afraid that the guy will suddenly come to, see my mouth aimed at his face and he'll jerk away and scream, "Get AWAY from me, weird girl!" And then all the other guys will come to his rescue and throw me into the pool, and I'll have to doggy paddle my way out. So I haven't tried the pool yet, because you never know. It could happen.

I usually go to the aerobics classes, and I also work out on the cardio machines, like the elliptical, the treadmill, and the exercise bikes. The last time I was on one of the machines, there was this guy exercising beside me. He kept banging on the sides of the machine with his hands, and I thought at first that he was listening to music and was pretending to play the drums or something. But then I realized that he was staring up at one of the TVs on the walls and was apparently watching "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". So I'm not sure why he kept flailing his hands around like that. I do know that one of his hands suddenly shot out and slapped me in the arm.

He didn't even apologize for hitting me. I glared at him and was all ready to say, "Oh, you WANT a piece of me? Get ready to rumble, JERK!" But he was too absorbed in Rudolph's antics to notice. Loser.

Even though I have a history of embarrassing myself at the gym, I still work out at least four or five times a week. It's a good escape from everything else that is going on in my life, and I don't have to feel like I'm wasting my time when I exercise.

What do you do to relieve stress?