Puppy Perspective

I have a puppy who is terrified of any type of floor cleaning item.

The vacuum, the broom, the Swiffer that makes that funny noise when you push the button to distribute the floor cleaning junk, and the stand-up dust pan.

And the dryer lint cleaning brush pushes him right over the brink of sanity.

I attribute this problem to the fact that he sees these things so seldomly he is mystified by their existence.

It reminds me of an incident years ago when my daughter stayed over night at my sisters’ house and when she noticed her iron said, “Auntie, what is that?”

Now bear in mind she was probably 10.

My sis replied, “That’s an iron.  You use it to take the wrinkles out of clothes.”

My daughter said, “I don’t think we have one of those.  That’s what we use our dryer for.”

For the record, we have an iron.  The little tike had just never seen it in her young lifetime.

Whatever…..

To say I am not a “Susie Homemaker” type is kind of an understatement.

My Daddy was a finishing cabinet maker and I always marveled at his ability to build something spectacular out of a piece of wood.

So it stands to reason that I would rather build a fence or refinish a piece of furniture than whip up a tasty concoction in the kitchen or iron clothes.

Plus it’s more of a monument of your time spent than an empty bowl of macaroni and cheese or a wrinkle free pair of jammies.

As a result I am sure my children will tell their kids that “wacky old Grandma wasn’t much of a cook but she sure could wield a mean sabre saw!”

Nothing makes me happier than strolling through the aisles at Home Depot checking out the new power tools and gadgets.

And the smell of the cut lumber transports me back to the lazy afternoons of my childhood watching my Daddy at work.

When I was married, my sister-in-law (who was from Croatia), came to visit us and told my husband in her native tongue that we needed to fire the housekeeper because she was doing such a lousy job.

Needless to say, the only one who ever cleaned our house was ME and since I felt my biggest and most important task was raising my three babies, it wasn’t important to me to make sure there were no dust bunnies hovering under the couch.

She was horrified.

I on the other hand, was amused.

Hey, if it bothered her that much she was welcome to wield her dustbuster to her Slavic hearts content!

But the problem with the puppy and the vicious vacuum got me to thinking about our own ridiculous fears.

You see, if I pick him up and let him see that it won’t hurt him, he calms down and shuts up.

At least for 2 or three seconds or so.

A different "puppy perspective".

Maybe we should try that with some of the nonsense bouncing around in our skulls that makes us want to tear out our hair.

Then we can see that it is really not as scary as it seems.

And that most of it we can’t really do anything about anyway.

So we just need to relax and try to enjoy the ride on this rollercoaster we call life.

OR, we could take a tip from my puppy and go chew on one of our shoes and then go take a nap.

……..I’m just sayin’