The Dog Blog with Kathryn Socie

Civility? Nah!

By Kathryn Socie, 6-18-08

	A little dirt is good for everybody, right?

As I walked through the door into a room filled predominantly with strangers, I was immediately struck by the sense that something was wrong.  Terribly wrong.  I was greeted by the hostess, a distant friend of a friend who had just the day before insisted that I attend her party.  So I did.  And, wow, was I in foreign terrain.  Her house was impeccable, immaculate, something out of a catalog, nay a museum.  A China cabinet stood against the back wall with actual China in it, neatly, perfectly displayed.  She had a matching red, velvet couch and love seat, sitting on perfectly plush, white carpet buffered by teak wood end tables.  The walls were the color of a fresh latte and a set of themed, framed prints were hung throughout a never-ending expanse of a house.  It was beautiful in an Edward Scissorhands sort of way; uncomfortably tidy with a dash of eery.  Still, she created a show home that would make Martha Stewart proud. 

My sheer out-of-placeness there left me totally stunned.  For starters, the hostess asked guests, very politely, to remove their shoes.  Had I been planning for a shoes-off occasion, I would have strategized my footwear.  As per usual, I had run the dogs on dusty, dirt trails in my Chacos before leaving for the event only to throw my filthy feet into a pair of dressier clogs.  Imagine my horror as I stood in this woman’s foyer about to step gross, grimy, dirt-covered foot in her utterly well-kempt home.  Already embarrassed, I was soon catapulted into mortification.

Balancing on my one clean square inch of skin, I managed to make it across the white carpet to take a seat on the couch where I was handed a plate of designer food.  True to form, as soon as I started talking I began gesticulating wildly, tossing a ham and cheese skewer on to the snow-white floor.  Instead of picking it up immediately, I naturally started looking around for the dog. Realizing that a dog could not possibly live within 100 meters of this home, I leaned over to pick up my geometrically precise hors d’oeuvre only to have a tomato roll onto the carpet, leaving a trail of bright red juice.  When I stood up in insistence that I clean up my mess, I turned to notice I had left behind a thick mat of dog hair shaped much like a chalk outline of my dead body, on red velvet no less. As a rule I never leave home without the dogs in some way, but this was a bit much. 

This is apparently what happens when you invite Pig Pen to a party; a party at which people are much more civilized than I.  These people have perfectly manicured carpet and seem to barely actually live in their home.  Though the party hostess shares her lovely domicile with her husband, he clearly bears no genetic resemblance to the men in my family.  His Y chromosome includes some sort of neatness coding missed by all of the filthy pigs I grew up with (which, obviously was infectious and spread to me).  But despite the seeming perfection of it all, her home felt barren, lifeless. Maybe they weren’t animal people, which is totally acceptable, but there wasn’t so much as a well-placed fern. 

There is nothing impeccable or well-coiffed about my house.  Dog and cat hair are an integral part of the structural integrity of my place.  If you removed it, which is an impossible feat, I am sure the entire building would collapse. When I serve a meal, I gleefully announce: “And the hair in your food comes free!” in an effort to prepare my guests for the extra dose of protein they are about to ingest.  If you were to sit on my couch, Walker, the black-and-white dog, would promptly take a seat on your lap and Mo, the cat, would begin pacing, purring and drooling behind you, showering your neck with spittle.  I recommend that folks wear shoes in my house so their socks don’t get dirty and fine China, forget about it.  Between my spastic behavior and the cats, I go through a set of dishes a year. I buy them cheap and recycle the shards.

Chaotic as it is some days, I love my tiny, dirty, haphazardly decorated house.  Sure, every morning starts with pacing dogs and mewing cats, but I get greeted at the door by a happy crowd every day.  If the lighting would allow, I’d cover the place in plants.  Yes, the couch was purchased at a garage sale for $15 and is covered with washable fabric and the flooring is laminate for ease of cleaning up vomit and the like, but sheez it’s the best. See, my things have never mattered to me at all. Having life of some sort practically oozing out of every nook and cranny, however, is maniacally important to my sense of home.

I may be uncivilized, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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