Our five-pound Yorkshire terrier, Ploodle, does not go to a dog groomer. His mother puts a bowl on his head and cuts his hair with loving hands at home. I am Ploodle's stylist.
I also own the bowl.
When Ploodle looks like a possessed oven mitt, I know it is time to "trim him up." When I'm done he often looks idiotic. Sometimes, for a bit of whimsy, I leave the hair on his legs longish so that he looks like he's wearing UGG boots. People laugh at him, but he's a very secure fellow and has a fine self-deprecating sense of humor.
After giving Ploodle a crew cut in honor of crew cut awareness week, I ended up with a tiny haystack of fuzzy Yorkie hair that I wrapped in a towel (for immediate disposal in the garbage), but then I forgot and stuffed the towel with the whole hairy mess in the wash machine, which got washed on the "Heavy" cycle, probably more than once, and then got stuffed into the dryer and dried on "High Heat-Cottons."
The haystack of Ploodle hair turned into a toupee--a bad one.
I called my husband.
"Honey, I can't find it."
He's used to getting phone calls from me, in the middle of the day, that contain little or no context, information--or sense. He's used to not knowing what the heck is going on.
"What? What can't you find?"
"The toupee."
There was a pause. It might have been beyond pregnant.
"Remember?" I said, frustrated anew at my husband's lack of mind reading talent. "Remember? That wad of Ploodle hair I showed you; the wad of hair that kind of got cooked in the dryer into a giant placemat and that ended up looking like it was made of Yeti armpit fur? Remember?"
The memory came back with a thud. I know; I heard a thud sound.
"Oh right, it was disgusting."
"Okay, so I put it in the bathroom garbage, but now I can't find it."
"Well I don't have it." Sherwood is working in Detroit. He flies home on the weekends so I can keep him up to date on important stuff.
I wandered through the house trying to decide if I had dreamed the whole dog hair toupee incident.
"I can't find it anywhere." I noticed another one of the dogs wearing what looked like a mustache. "Wait a minute. Either Coco is trying out a disguise, or I think I'm onto the location of the missing toupee." I followed a breadcrumb trail made out of dog hair toupee bits.
Still talking to Sherwood, I walked into our bedroom. Ginger, our soldier son's English Bull-dog, looked up, her mouth full of either the butt end of a molting moose or the missing hairpiece.
"Never mind. I found it."
"Thank goodness. For a minute there I was afraid that you were going to accuse me of having packed the darned thing." He clicked off.
Ploodle stood by, looking embarrassed.
"What are you embarrassed about? It's just hair. I got all the way to the gym with a piece of that white sticky tape from a lint roller stuck in my waistband, trailing out like a castle banner. And some woman walked by, saw it, made a face AND DIDN'T BOTHER TO SAY ANYTHING."
Ploodle had the good grace to blink.
"That's right; just about the time I think I'm looking hip, fit, and cool, it's a safe bet that something ridiculous is going to be stuck in or on the back of my pants."
Ploodle wagged his nubby little tail. I sighed.
"I'm just glad it wasn't your dog hair toupee stuck to my pants. Wouldn't that have been hard to explain?"
Ploodle, Ginger, Coco and I decided to go play jump over the horse poop piles until dinner.
Linda (Close Shave) Zern
