Please Accept My Apologies
Dear Readers, Please accept my apologies for the email you just received. The subject line is traumatizing even to me. Technology is not my friend.
The truth is, I was deeply upset by that substack post. It triggered memories of my own experiences and I started writing something to share with all of you. Something that expanded on what I wrote in my June 23, 2021 essay titled, “Our Body, Our Home,”:
A woman’s house is always under attack. Always at risk of being broken into, vandalized, and burgled. Every unwanted touch steals something. Every lecherous look is casing the joint.
But all I had written so far was this, a story about my dog Mazie:
Recently, as I was walking my little dog, Mazie, and her two+-year-old pup, Rupert, someone stopped us to comment. Mazie is such a cutie that I typically indulge in these conversations. What I share is pretty much always the same: Mazie is still skittish, having been rescued at eighteen months from a hoarding house with over eighty dogs. Still pretty much a puppy herself, and weighing only thirteen pounds, she was pregnant when I adopted her and she went on to have five puppies (quite a bit for such a small dog)! The other four all look just like Mazie while Rupert is a different color and larger, so clearly, there must have been at least two dads.
The response is always pretty much the same: poor girl -so young to have puppies, what a brave and good mamma she must have been, and how lucky she is to have me. Except this time, the response was different.
“What a little hussy!” the woman exclaimed.
Excuse me?
“Well, two daddies…”
I was stunned.
She’s a dog, I reminded the woman. She was rescued from a home with over 80 other dogs. She wasn’t running around looking for a good time. “Are you serious? She’s a dog!”
The woman nervously giggled. “Oh, of course, I know. I was just kidding.”
PLEASE PLEASE FORGIVE ME for accidentally sharing the other post.
I am horrified and I hope I have not traumatized you or offended you with my technological mistake.