Animal Addicts Anonymous

Yesterday at lunch, a friend related one of the funniest stories I’ve heard in a long time. Her friend, who we’ll call Liz, was planning a party, and in preparation, she went to the liquor store and purchased several bottles of wine. She stored them in a cool part of her basement.

Several days later, Liz noticed a foul odor in her garage. After an intense search, she discovered the source of the odor. A raccoon had found a way to gain access to her basement through the garage and got his little raccoon paws on the wine. The clever little critter had broken the bottles and consumed the wine. She found him lying on his back in a drunken stupor. His eyes were rolled back, and he wore the grin of a happy drunk on a high. But still, what was causing the odor?

The raccoon simultaneously farted and belched, and Liz had her answer.

She called animal control. To the woman who answered, she said, “I’m sure this is going to be the strangest call you’ve ever received, but I have a drunken raccoon in my basement.”

The woman at animal control laughed uncontrollably and then admitted that, yes, it was probably the strangest call they had ever received. An agent was dispatched immediately to rescue the ripped raccoon.

Several agents actually arrived at her home, all eager to witness the spectacle. As they put the sloshed little stinker in the truck, someone remarked, “This is really bad. This guy isn’t going to be able to function in the wild for a while. He’s going to have to be rehabilitated so he can re-learn the skill of foraging for food."

Did you get that? The drunken little bastard had to go to raccoon rehab.

Can you imagine the scene at that joint?

ANIMAL REHAB

Counselor (a wise old owl): This meeting of Animal Addicts Anonymous will come to order. We’ll begin by going around the room, stating our first name and last initial and the nature of our addiction.

Wolf: Hi. I’m Phil U., and I’m a sex addict. The nature of my addiction has been such that I have illicit sex with – well, let’s just say I’ve been with some who aren’t my kind. In particular, three goats, a pig, and a foxy little vixen who . . .

Owl Counselor, loudly clearing throat: Um, I think that will suffice, Phil. Who’s next?

Python: (Shyly). Hi, I’m Rosie O.

All: Hi, Rosie.

Python: I have an eating disorder. My problem is ssssswallowing my victims. I get them down, but then when I ssssee the big bulge in my belly, I just get ssssso upsssset that I regurgitate them.

Wolf: Hehe. I guess you could say she ssssspits, not ssssswallows.

Owl: Phil, if we have another inappropriate comment from you, I’ll have to ask you to leave. Thanks for sharing that painful truth, Rosie. Next we have . . .

Dachshund: Hi, everyone. I’m Sigmund F., and I have the opposite problem from Rosie over there. I eat anything I see. I think I’ve finally hit rock bottom, because I was ordered to rehab after my owners caught me eating my own shit.

All except Owl: Ewwwwww!

Owl: Now, everyone, we need to remember that shame is what keeps us in our addictions. Siggy – can I call you Siggy? -- is admitting some pretty harsh realities to us, but we need to remember the old adage, “There but for the grace of God and the dogcatcher go I.”

Dachshund: Thanks for that, Owl. Anyway, this is my last chance. If I do it again, I’m going straight to the pound.

Raccoon: Hi. I’m Ricky, and I broke into a lady’s house, stole some wine, and got drunk as a skunk.

Skunk, tail in air: Hey, pal, that’s uncalled for! I oughta come over there and . . .

Owl: Sal, remember your anger management skills. Spraying someone because of a perceived insult only reinforces the powerful hold your temper has had over you.

Skunk, lowering tail: Sorry, Sigmund. I lost my tail for a minute. By the way, everyone, I’m Sal, and if you haven’t already guessed, I was ordered to anger management classes after an unfortunate incident. And actually, it involved a dachshund. Not Siggy over there. Another dachshund.

Dachshund: Let me guess. He thought you were a squirrel. We dogs are color blind, and you skunks do kind of resemble squirrels, who are the bane of our existence. Boy, what I would do to catch a squirrel. I’d tear it limb from limb and then eat . . .

Owl: Ahem! Let’s move on. Step Two of the Twelve Steps states, “We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” Would anyone like to share with the group what serves as their higher power?

Dachshund: The dog catcher?

Counselor: I can see that. Anyone else?

Raccoon: For me, I guess it's Animal Control. All I can think about is that sweet nectar in that woman's basement, but if they catch me drinking again, I'll never get back to the woods.

Wolf: Pamela Anderson does it for me.

Counselor: Okay, Phil. That’s it. I need to ask you to leave.

Wolf: Whaaaaat? I’m not trying to be funny here. My therapist told me that a higher power is whatever gives you a radical reason to change. I hung a poster of Pamela in my den, and everytime I’m tempted to go after some fox or a coy little kitty, I look at Pamela and tell myself, “Hold out for the big prize, Phil.” It works for me.

Counselor, hanging head in defeat: Our time is up. Let’s stand and join paws. Rosie, just wrap yourself around Phil, why don't you? Let's repeat the Serenity Prayer for Animals.

All: “God, give me the serenity to scavenge the things I cannot stalk, to courage to stalk the stuff I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Metaphysical Mutts

Having their pictures hanging in the local post office for biting the mailman just wasn’t enough for the dachshunds. The felonious little beasts are now on the county’s list of vicious animals, and they’re under house arrest, which in this case means they’re only allowed to leave the confines of our home under heavy security. Two leashes each.

Laverne and Shirley are the biggest little troublemakers on the planet. Well, Laverne is little. She’s eight pounds of pure badass, trotting her little self all over the yard as if every cat, dog, or person who passes should be terrified of her. And they should be. She bites. Not hard enough to break the skin, but it doesn’t exactly tickle, either.

Shirley used to be twelve pounds, until she ballooned to twice Laverne’s size. Last fall, gained four pounds in one month. That’s a twenty-five percent weight gain. In Oprah’s world, it’s enough to get your picture on the cover of several tabloids with the blaring headline “OUT OF CONTROL!”

She was fat and lethargic and mad as hell about it. God knows that if I gained that much weight in one month, I’d bite someone, too.

The vet determined that Shirley had a thyroid problem. After a few weeks on soloxine, her “Skinny Shirley” pills, she was almost back to her normal weight. And I have to say that, if it weren’t for having seen the Seinfeld episode in which Kramer helped himself to the canine meds and then started to act like a dog, I might have been tempted to pop a couple of those little pink pills.

The soloxine did not, however, temper Shirley’s temper. She’s like Mike Tyson on speed when a stranger enters our yard, especially a stranger she deems to be of questionable character. And somehow, she’s surprisingly accurate in her character assessments.

According to some of the New Age wizards, animals mirror the behavior of their owners. But whose behavior are my dogs reflecting?

Well, for starters, the dachshunds are extremely protective of our children. I can grab my son and playfully shake him, and within seconds, Luverne is hurling her body at me like a Kamikaze fighter. Protecting the kids – that’s like me.

I’ll take credit for the pancake batter incident, also. They once intercepted the UPS guy and opened a package containing five pounds of sweet potato pancake mix. I pulled into the driveway to find them lying in the yard, bloated and unable to move. I love sweet potato pancakes, especially with cinnamon syrup. And although I haven’t gained twenty-five percent of my body weight in one month, four pounds in thirty days can be easily accomplished with the help my friends Ben, Jerry, and Sara Lee. So the dogs’ eating habits are more like mine, although I don’t eat shit. Well, on second thought, I swallowed a lot of my husband’s crap without thinking twice.

But pushing little kids down and attempting to hump them? And rooting around in gym bags looking for dirty underwear to chew on is something I can’t say I’ve ever done. They got that from my former husband.

So they’re a combination of my ex-husband and me, I guess. Energetic mixed breeds. Metaphysical mutts, if you will.

Well, there is one more story I should tell, an incident that happened after the divorce was final which might tip the balance in favor of my being their reflective inspiration.

My property taxes went up. The county claimed that a “Change of Ownership” prompted the reassessment and that the higher valuation reflected the increase in market value.

Being a writer, I quickly fired off a letter that only marginally veiled my outrage. First of all, there had been no change of ownership. I had received the house in the divorce and had, upon the advice of my tax attorney, placed the ownership of my home in a trust, appropriately titled the Grace Adams Trust. The name was the same, I pointed out. Secondly, I reminded the Office of Tax Assessors that the housing market was in a serious slump. According to recent reports on “Good Morning America,” my home was only worth two thirds of its previous valuation. So either they could reduce that valuation to accurately reflect current market values, or they could just agree that no name change had ever taken place, and we would all just forget the whole unfortunate incident.

Well, the unfortunate incident got worse. They sent an assessor to my home, but nobody told me she was coming. Had I been warned, the dachshunds would not have been patrolling the perimeter of my property hunting squirrels, moles, and well, tax assessors. The poor girl had no idea that the cute little doggies wagging their tails while barking ferociously would actually bite. (Actually, their method of attack is quite sophisticated. Laverne barks the ferocious warning, and Shirley sneaks up from behind and draws blood from the thin-skinned area around the ankle.)

I actually felt sorry for a tax assessor.

County Animal Control came to my house and verified they were current on their rabies vaccinations. They put my dogs on the county’s list of vicious animals and a ten-day home quarantine.

And then the county put my home’s valuation right back where it had been in the beginning.

Barking and growling while wagging their tails. They got that from me. Then again, if your dog barks and growls and chases tail, it could be mirroring the behavior of a cheating husband.