Today was give the stinky dog a bath day. My dogs don’t like baths, so I straddle them like a horse and hold them with my legs. Since the dogs spend the entire bath trying to escape, this is a lot like jello wrestling a piglet. No. It’s more like mud wrestling except that I don’t know why the dog was so stinky, so it might not have been mud. The recipient of today’s bath is also the naughty dog. So, I stood in the bathtub, my legs doing a vise grip on a wet, soapy dog who was bucking and howling. Howling like a werewolf on a full moon. Neither of us was having fun. A few minutes after I poured the soap on the still stinky but wet dog, the dog managed to leap from the tub. However, my legs were still tightly locked on said dog, so as she left the tub, so did I. She landed halfway across the bathroom and I landed on the bathroom floor. She landed on all four of her feet. I landed on my left knee and let go of the dog as I made a huge noise that brought Doug racing up the stairs. I struggled to get up from what passes for a bathroom floor in our house ever since the naughty dog ate the linoleum. I could hear Doug quizzing the children and searching for the mess that coincided with the sound of an elephant falling on the floor. Satisfied that there was nothing broken in the living room, Doug returned to the dungeon while I carried a soapy dog back into the tub.

I braced myself better and locked my legs tighter around naughty dog. My knee was throbbing and I did not want to lift the dog back into the tub a third time. The howling began again. Sad, pitiful, abused dog sounds brought Amy, Evan and neighborhood children to the bathroom door. I didn’t even realize they were there until I heard Amy’s giggle. Several small faces stared, mouths open, looking very much like Roger Daltrey at the wet, soapy, plastered with dog hair and tiny bits of leftover linoleum, middle aged woman holding a soapy, howling dog. Did I mention that I was naked? Yes, I bathe my dogs au naturale. I wasn’t planning on the children coming to rescue the dog. So, the crazy, naked lady not so calmly asked the children to close the door and Doug raced back upstairs. Doug stuck his arm around the door, turned the lock and closed the door. Some primitive survival instinct kept him from entering the bathroom to hear me rant about my aching knee and the poor children.

I tried to imagine the scenario of me calling another child’s mother to explain why her child saw me naked. I decided it would be better if Doug called the other child’s father and talked about me being naked. Yes, I’m sexist. I’m also a coward with a swollen, purple knee.