Just in case you’re wondering, that’s not a picture of me up there. That’s Elmer, the Infamous Basset Hound, being carried around by my husband (see back of head to the left). What makes that picture really delightful is not the sheer length of that dog’s ears, nor is it the befuddled expression on his little puppy face as he perches six feet off the ground.

No, the real humor lies in the backstory: that when we got Elmer (the day before that picture was taken) my husband decreed that if we must have a dog, well, that was one thing. But the dog was to be raised with the strictest limitations during his formative months: if Elmer was not playing with a family member, he was to be in his crate. Period. End of story.

So it makes perfect sense that He Who Decreed turned out to be the one to carry the dog everywhere like a gigantic purse. Crate? What crate? I don’t see any crate. I’m holding the dog. It made even more sense that the dog’s feet didn’t touch the ground for weeks after he came to live with us. All that sense explains the irony in that, if we find Elmer hiding under the couch nursing the telltale remnants of a bedroom slipper, the remnants are usually HWD’s.

Speaking of dogs, I’d like to discuss looks for a moment. Not dirty looks. *My* looks.

I spent most of my own formative years, not in a dog crate, but in a pre-pubescent haze wishing I were better looking. I spent my college years being the ‘friend.’ (You know what I mean: two frat boys debating who gets the pretty girl and who gets the ‘friend.’)

It was only when I was in my thirties that I came to appreciate what a gift it is not to be Gisele Bundchen’s stunt double.

For example, when you look like me and a guy likes you, there’s better than even money that it’s because he really likes you, and not because he’s just filling time while his best friend sweet-talks the pretty one.

When you look like me:

• There’s no chance anyone will be unpleasantly surprised when they see you without makeup.
• There are no looks to lose. There’s even a chance you might get better-looking with age.
• No photographer is going to live to get a picture of you in a bathing suit, because it’s a foregone conclusion that your rear end looks like Fang (Hagrid’s dog from the Harry Potter movies), so where’s the story?

For the record, this is what I look like: https://mominterrupted.wordpress.com/avatar/mominterrupted-128.jpg?1207200941 The picture is notable in that

• I’m wearing lipstick. It’s the first thing my mother noticed and 
• at no point can you see the resemblance to Fang but
• you may start wondering about my resemblance to Hagrid.

© E. Stocking Evans 2008