t’s a quiet Friday night and I am teetering on the precipice of a tantrum. Lots of things do this to me: a stubbed toe, a late inning email, anything that comes out of the face of Donald Trump.
I am a mostly mellow person, but in some ways I channel my father, whose abilities to tantrum would have landed him in the Pol Pot Museum of Despotism and Volcanic Explosions. Today I think it’s a splatter of tomato sauce on my toe while cooking. Out came a rant that included many F bombs, many accusations of collusion amongst my kitchen utensils, and a vague comment towards the government’s coverup of UFO activity. (I’ve been watching a lot of Discovery Plus recently.)
It’s in the middle of this rant that I pick up a high-pitched though quiet whine behind me. This is different from the grunt of annoyance (accompanied with eye roll) that my tantrums elicit from Burke. And the cat has been spending most of her days in the under-bed region (the pants I have in storage under there look like a whole other cat).
I turn and find myself facing a one-foot-tall Shih Tzu. She is making her whiny face, her mouth is trembling, and her small cries occasionally pitch into something of a yelp. I offer her a piece of yellow pepper, which she accepts immediately, but once she’s swallowed it she goes back to whining at me. My heart stops thumping in my chest, the vein in my forehead goes back to a normal, non-apoplectic size, and I stop seeing double.
Huh.
I pick up the dog – who, at one-foot-tall and 11 pounds, has little in the way of bodily autonomy. I then apologize for my outburst. I put on Magnum PI (her favorite show) and plop her on the couch. When I bring her a cooked piece of penne, she seems to have forgiven me.
Huh.
A week later, I accidentally heard the maggot-filled Captain Beefheart album backwards and on acid that marks the hallmarks of a Donald Trump attempt at ‘communication’. This sent me into a rage and as I was flailing about as regards the abject stupidity of people in red hats and implorations about how anyone could listen to this person ‘speak’ and think he was fit for office, behind me, about a foot from the floor, I heard the whine.
I turned.
Shih Tzu.
Two days later, I gouged my eye while applying shampoo (who hasn’t been there?). I let out a tiny rant, you know, just to get me through the pain. From outside the shower comes a whine. I pull the
As it turns out, the dog does not like nor does she allow a tantrum to take place within our home. She is a small dictator who does not like her life of lounging, relaxing, chilling, chillaxing, laying on the balcony watching the world below, eating, snacking, nibbling, dining, or smacking her lips to be interrupted by anything negative.
At first, I found myself annoyed by this. After all, between the two of us she pays decidedly less of the mortgage. And her cooking is crap (no opposable thumbs makes holding a pan is a pain). But after a little while I noticed that I was losing my temper less and less. And these at first were stifled and swallowed as rage pellets. But after another little while, this actually improved. I found I was ranting less, exploding less. I took to singing to myself and so I may still sound insane, but at least I sound like a nicer, more pleasant lunatic.
So, if you want to get less angry, get a Shih Tzu. And pretend Donald Trump doesn’t exist.
