 |
| By Partly Sunny |
This, is Ugly Dog.
Ugly Dog was the source of great pain, anguish, exhaustion, stress, and confusion today when we couldn’t find him in our friends’ cabin at Lake Tahoe. After a lovely day of climate-change sledding (we didn’t get very much snow this year, so there was a bunch of mud and rocks), it became clear that it was time to start packing up my extremely grumpy son who suddenly started acting like we’d taken him on some sort of Bataan death march. And this is when the trouble started.
I couldn’t find Ugly Dog. Ugly Dog is one of his favorite stuffed animals. He’s a sentimental person to begin with, but the things he sleeps with are particularly important. I’ve also made the huge mistake of unleashing one of my few talents — bringing inanimate objects to life and making them wildly cute and appealing — so now all of the kids’ stuffed animals have adorable personalities that everyone begs me to act out on a regular basis.
The result is that Ugly Dog, and everything else, is “real.” So if he gets lost, a real dog gets lost. Not just some lifeless chunk of material stuffed with foam. No. Ugly Dog is lost. And alone. And scared. And maybe even kidnapped.
So I tore that house apart looking for Ugly Dog. I unpacked clothes, unrolled the sleeping bag, and looked in places that would only be logical hiding places if Ugly Dog were able to move by his own free will. I seriously started to go a little bonkers. It was like being stuck in one of those ridiculous searching roadblocks on The Amazing Race.
We finally gave up and left. My son was crying. My daughter was crying because my son was crying. But I knew the thing had to turn up somewhere. It was physically impossible for it to have disappeared like that. Because really, in a three-bedroom cabin, there are only so many places to go.
When we got home, I methodically started unpacking everything. . . again. And that’s when it happened. As soon as I unrolled the sleeping bag, I saw the bump. Sure enough — there was Ugly Dog.
I looked through that damn sleeping bag three times at the cabin. Three times. I swear, the longer I live, the more I start to wonder if we really are in The Matrix. If there is some creepy computer program that generates the world around us, glitches out every once in a while, and forgets to put in key items. And then realizes, “Oops, better stick that back.” Either that or I’m losing my freakin’ mind.
Honestly at this point, I’m not sure which to hope for.
Tammy Soong is a writer, wife, and mom from Reno, Nevada. She takes an absurd amount of pain medication, but not enough to have actually named her children "Newt" and "Elfie." She spends most days stressing out over clutter, writing stuff for this place, and working on podcasts with her gal pals, the Blogging Betties.
LOL. The crazy things we do. My kids have blankies which they call "Neh Neh." I thought I was being brilliant when my oldest attached to her yellow thermal blanket by running to Babies R Us and buying two more. I would wash one and give her clean one. Eventually she became wise to my game, and starting preferring a particular one, even though they all looked alike. So I took the discarded two others and cut them up to make into a quilt for her. I made sure to put squares on the edge so when the preferred Neh Neh got lost, disintegrated, or she got too old to drag it, she'd have it always in a quilt. As she got older and dragged that thing like Linus from the Peanuts, it turned more brown and gray than yellow. I eventually cut the preferred one in quarters, sewing new lining around the smaller squares in order to make it last longer and preserve my sanity, she was tripping all over the darn thing, and four was better than one right? All these steps made me think I was a super inventive genius. I have just prolonged the pain of it all. Instead, my lovely daughter lost one square at Disneyland, and refused two other squares as not having the "right smell". Ick, not kidding. So she was down to one square, which eventually disintegrated into a brown string that she'd sleep with in her fist pushed up to her nose. When she finally lost that string, she bawled wracking sobs. Sobs that can only come from someone who has experienced a death of a close family member. I am not exaggerating her sobbing. It tore at my heart. Usually she'd lose Neh Neh for a half a day and she'd cry. But she knew it was the end and she was mourning. The quilt did nothing to comfort her. The remaining "clean" squares were rejected, at least at first. But a day later she asked for one of the squares. Now those are becoming threadbare and falling apart. She is turning 5 in two weeks….and I am not so sure these squares will last until she is 6. Yes 6 years of running around searching in things and tearing the house apart looking for them. 6 years of hearing crying of Neh Neh. And my second is attached to a blankie, too.
Silly question…is there a backup ugly dog? Not that it is a perfect solution…we somehow had an overlap in the time continuum years ago, and our so realized there were TWO stuffed airplanes! Then we had to keep track of two! (there s still one packed away…)
My recent post M is for Mine
Whew! Glad you found that dog. I had to have one of my kids' animals mailed home to us from a hotel we stayed at. The things we do for our children. It must be love.
My recent post Pinterest for the Practical
Ginger, I slept with my piece of blanket until I was TWELVE! I used to stow it away in my pillow case during sleepovers. So your kid isn't all that weird. Or maybe she is. Maybe she's me! Dear lord!
You always have the best stories, btw. Ya kill me.
No backup. But I did try that whole bit with blankets. And we failed miserably, just like you! He adopted Blankey 1, Blankey 2, and Blankey 3. Best laid plans.
I can't believe they actually did that for you. Most places would probably just pitch it.
Do you remember some pictures a few years ago of Angelina Jolie (I think) desperately leaning over a boat rail because her kid had dropped his animal over the side? And some guy fished it out. I guess motherly love is universal.