Embarrassing and proud
November 12th, 2008 
On our final evening in Salt Lake City, we met up with our team for dinner at Spencer’s For Steaks and Chops, a restaurant voted “best steakhouse in Utah”. This actually has nothing to do with what I’m about to write about, but I thought I’d throw that in there, because hey, you don’t see two vegetarians at a table with eight other plates of 14 oz, $33 steak everyday now do you?
(They also offered a wine list with prices up to $3000 a bottle, and no I am not kidding you. As one woman said: “If I’m going to drop that much money, I’d like to have something to show for it, like a pair of Manolos, or you know, A DIAMOND maybe?”)
While we were waiting for our food, the conversation on the southern end of the table turned to pictures of our kids, namely, the subject of carrying photos of them with us. Out of the five women involved in the conversation, one of them had photos of her children, one didn’t, one didn’t have kids, and two of them carried photos of their dogs instead.
So those who had photos passed them around. And just as I was putting my phone away, it hit me:
I am one of those people. Only, still in the closet.
You know, one of those psycho pet owners who dress their pets up, do the babytalk thing with them and carry their photos everywhere. My dog is on my desktop. He’s on my bedroom walls. He’s on my website. He’s on my Flickr. He’s on my iPhone. And right now, he’s on my bed. Despite this, I mostly reserve my embarrassing psycho pet behavior to when I’m alone. Mostly.
It started slowly at first. Last Christmas when I was out of the country for two weeks, I got the idea of changing my desktop image to a picture of him. It cheered me up instantly (even if it made me miss him more) and it was a good idea right up until the moment when the embarrassing side of me escaped and I leaned forward, rubbed my nose against the computer screen and said, “mommy misses her widdle baby bapohsnucko!” in my embarrassing babytalk voice.
What? It’s practically an involuntary action; you see a cute wet black nose attached to an even cuter white dog with big black puppy eyes, you suppress eat him up and just rub your nose against his instead. Then you back away, take a couple deep breaths, and try to contain your urge to suffocate him with hugs and kisses. It’s a daily process, you see.
And that’s another thing. Nobody in this house even calls him by his real name anymore. Why? Because I keep coming up with more and more nonsensical nicknames that somehow catch on with everyone else in the house, nicknames like: winko, winkytinky, winkypinky, binky, puppysnucks, puppysnucko, bahpo, bahposnucko, bahponucko, hakapooka, snugglepupoh, bobojengles, most beautiful face of evil, snuggleupagus, meowmeow, pupukitty, and perhaps the most normal of them all, sugarplum.
Male humans might wear t-shirts that say “Real Men Wear Pink”, but it takes a real manly man to give you kisses after you call him pupukitty.
Haha! Enjoy Winky however you want to while you still have him!
November 12th, 2008 at 6:22 pmHow sweet. I’m one of those people too… I have more pictures of my pets than my own family. I don’t talk to my animals in baby talk… but I do talk to them like a child. I love my animals… I don’t care how crazy that makes me look!
Reply: Hahaha, they should have a club for people like us!
November 13th, 2008 at 6:03 amThat’s too cute. I’m almost one of those people. I love my kitty to death, and I miss him dearly because he’s thousands of miles away right now - but his name is Alexander. I don’t really have nicknames for him, because he responds to his name. I only call him, “Alex.” My parents never used baby talk with me, so I don’t use it with my cat. I talk to him, but just like I would a human. Maybe that’s stranger? “Hey Alex, come here. I missed you. ” Then, he comes.
Reply: Oh I do that too! Sometimes when I’m alone in the house I’ll ask him random questions as if he could answer me, like, “want to go for walk?” or, “what should mommy eat?” … the silly things we do. Sometimes I swear he understands what I say though!
November 13th, 2008 at 12:13 pm