The Dog Days of December

My Christmas was so bad that not even National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation could make me laugh. And the fact that I had access to edited-for television Christmas movies on cable was the highlight of my holiday. How sad is that?

It was my own fault of course, for not listening to my intuition when I was offered a certain dog-sitting job that included Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I heard a very definite "No way" resound in my mind as I read about the situation on offer. But I was upset that Dumpling had to work both of those days at the restaurant, and so I childishly acted out and took it.

I think my logic went something like: Dumpling has to work through the holidays, I'm going to be alone and sad, so why don't I work too, and make it even worse? That'll show him!

Well, it showed him that his wife is crazy.

The job was caring for two dogs (a dalmation and a pit bull) and five cats for three days and two nights in a one-bedroom apartment. All the animals had been rescued from the street or from shelters. The owner (who shall remain nameless and genderless for privacy reasons) worked from home for an animal rights group, and apparently gave the animals a level of attention that cannot be achieved by anyone else.

I had already agreed to cat-sit in the same neighborhood for five days (which consisted of two daily visits to feed, water, and clean up after five cats) so I thought that at least staying up there would save some subway time and make things easier. Oh how very, very wrong I was.

Fortunately there's always the old humor equation Tragedy + Time = Comedy to put things into perspective. Please join me in laughing at what I now like to call the Christmas of the Mad Menagerie.

The apartment was one of those places where if you visit for five minutes it doesn't seem that bad. But once you're there on your own (with seven animals) you start to see it for real. All the furniture had layers upon layers of various types of stains, the windowsills and windows were grimy, hairy, and dusty, and there was junk stuffed packrat-style into every closet, under the bed, and into every drawer and cupboard. It makes my skin crawl just thinking about it.

Speaking of crawling, there were no fewer than four breeds of cockroach living there: the big, greasy orange ones (what I like to call the "New York Standard"), the dark brown round ones, the black fast ones, and--I shit you not--albino cockroaches. Yes, they exist. I squealed like a little girl and did a freak-out dance in the kitchen when I saw my first one.

All five cats were fed on the kitchen counter twice a day, but they'd all eat at different times, which means there was a constant supply of wet and dry cat food for the roaches to feast upon. One of the cats (a real sweetheart, and I don't mean to disparage her) was too old to jump on the counter, so she had to be lifted up several times a day to eat and drink.

Another cat some bizarre skin disease so it had raw, scaly patches all over (he was found in a parking lot in that condition, and four thousand dollars of tests later, the vets still don't know exactly what's wrong with him) and he also used the shower as his toilet each and every time, which meant that the entire apartment smelled like cat shit every time he did his business, and I'd have to grab the bottle of bleach and paper towels and go clean it up.

Two of cats were recently adopted, spooked, and hid under the bed until nighttime when they'd come out, eat, and then run around making a ruckus and getting the dogs excited when they were supposed to be sleeping.

The fifth cat was pretty normal, but I hardly had time to notice, sadly. We could have commiserated.

The Dalmation was fine indoors, but a real bulldozer on the leash. She had black rings around her eyes that looked like Cleopatra-style eyeliner, and she'd give me these really intense looks sometimes as if to say, "You have no flipping idea what you're doing here, do you?"

The pit bull was a very sweet dog, but it was like trying to care for a three-year-old toddler in a pit bull's body. He liked baby talk, sitting on my lap, and barking at noises outside the window or in the hallway (I'm sure I don't have to tell you that in New York, there are always noises outside or in the hall). His owner liked to encourage him to jump up, which meant that I spent a lot of time telling him not to jump on me.

I had been told that most of the animals would be sleeping on the bed. Fine. My cat sleeps on the bed. I get it. What I wasn't told was that the pit bull and the scaly cat liked to sleep under the covers. Touching me.

Not cool!

So the first night there I got in bed, read for a bit, started to settle in, realized what was going on when the dog and cat happily writhed and wormed their way under the covers, and muttered, "You've got to be kidding me." I waited for the animals to doze off, then crept to the couch, which was uncomfortable but bearable. The pit bull got up and checked on me a couple of times, and one of the cats joined me, but I made it through the night.

The second night, the pitty was wise to my tricks. When I moved to the couch he followed me and sat there whining and chiding me with half-barking noises until finally I got up, my nerves shattered from exhaustion and discomfort, and returned to the bed. After calling Dumpling for some sympathy, I curled up as small as I could in one corner and tried to think of all the awful and uncomfortable places I've bunked in over the years. I haven't decided yet if this was the worst, but it's up there.

The dogs got walked four times a day, and all the animals were fed twice a day. In addition, I made two daily trips to another apartment to feed and clean up after the other five cats. And I'll never again complain about taking care of my own sweet cat (singular).

But I survived! And the experience actually served as a catalyst for a major apartment-cleaning project that Dumpling and I have undertaken in the New Year. (All right, I've undertaken it, but Dumpling is playing along.) When I was at the Mad Menagerie's pen I kept saying to myself: "How can people live like this?!"

And I decided that I never would.

So, yeah, that was my Christmas. Alone in a filthy apartment full of neurotic animals and roaches, watching the Griswolds and weeping silent, pitiful tears because I couldn't believe what a bone-headed decision I'd made. Live and learn, right?

And the moral of the story is: always listen to your intuition.

Always, always, always.