Miscellaneous: Still Trapped. In a Hotel Room. With Dogs.

[thefourthvine]

I have learned many important lessons in the last week and a half, and I want to share just a few of them with you. True, they probably won't ever actually be useful to you. Frankly, you should probably plan your life so that they're not. But I'm damned well going to share them anyway.

1. You can totally use complimentary hotel toiletries to wash a dog. Your dog's coat will be silky-soft, full-bodied, and shiny afterward, and you will briefly consider sending an unsolicited testimonial to the manufacturer. Do not do this. It's just hotel-room psychosis setting in.
   
   
2. Bathing a dog in a hotel bathroom is not the most fun you will ever have. It's not the most fun the dog will ever have, either. (Tip: be on the other side of the shower curtain from the dog at ALL TIMES. Particularly when you, after having lured her there under false pretenses and with many treats, show her the magical sky fountain. And most especially when you turn the magical sky fountain off. It is entirely possible to keep a firm hold on a collar through two layers of shower curtain, and if you know what's good for you, that's what you'll do.)
   
   
3. Spending any significant amount of time with a dog who is covered in another dog's urine is even less fun than bathing her will eventually be.
   
   
4. And if you want to experience a near total absence of fun, try being stuck in a small area with:
   
   
   1. A dog who is covered in another dog's urine, but is determined not to let this stand in the way of her social life.
      
   2. The dog who peed on the first dog and is thus undergoing a serious metaphysical crisis ("Do I exist? Does urine exist? WILL DINNER EXIST?"), with attendant digestive distress.
      
   3. A book called Why People Believe Weird Things.
      
   4. A Mormon insurance salesman (okay, "executive") who is not getting good cell phone reception and apparently can't sustain continued existence without talking to someone at all times.
   
   Trust me when I tell you that every potential topic of conversation in this situation is both uncomfortable and inevitable.
   
   
5. Any conversational gambit that begins, "So, you seem like a smart girl, you like books and stuff [the "stuff" apparently being "deranged dogs," as that was the other thing it was obvious I liked, so be advised: if you want to find a smart girl, look in the dog training section of your local bookstore], so maybe you can tell me..." is bound to end badly. Avoid it. Feign death if you have to.
   
   
6. But that conversational gambit (and all other ones, including, "What are you reading?" "So, why do people believe weird things?" "What's a fallacy?" "What kind of weird things, exactly?" "What religion are you?" "Are you married?" "Does your husband have life insurance?") is far preferable to, "So what's all this wet stuff on your dog's side?" Especially after the urine-covered dog has made exceptionally friendly (not to say utterly unstoppable) overtures to your new insurance-executive friend, and he has taken them with remarkably good grace.
   
   
7. There is a time and a place for putting the Barnum Effect to work for you, and that time and place is when you find yourself giving relationship advice to a Mormon insurance executive.

So, that's how my life has been lately. (Specifically, yesterday. I mean, I did some other stuff, but somehow it pales in comparison to that fun-filled hour.) How are you? I'm pretty much missing out on fandom and my friends list, what with the trapped in a hotel room with dogs effect, so please let me know of any new stories or life events or vids or, you know, whole fandoms that have passed me by.

Seriously. Recommend something to me. I need things to distract me from my plan to strangle my dogs.

Comments

[cpt-untouchable.livejournal.com]

*giggles helplessly* And yeah, stuff's goin' down, but a lot of it is hysteria. LJ's not persecuting fandom, or anything. Trust me, you're happier missing it.

How on earth did the Mormon get involved?

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

How on earth did the Mormon get involved?

See, the room was being cleaned. So I had to take the dogs for a walk, which I did. And then there was the peeing incident, and at that point there were very few places I could take the dogs - so few environments are really urine-friendly - so I took them to the little area with benches and a fountain, where I could sit and read my book and pretend I wasn't going to have to wash a dog in a hotel bathroom in a few minutes.

And then the Mormon showed up. And I was kind of pinned down, what with dogs and book, and also I had nowhere to go. And then conversation ensued.

I want a t-shirt that says, "Can't talk. READING." Why do people assume that other people who are reading books in public are dying for an opportunity to stop reading?

[cpt-untouchable.livejournal.com]

I'd like to note that pretty much right after I made this comment ... fandom got smacked. Hrm. You're still better off for having missed it all.

And re: the Mormon - I know. What IS that? I'm clearly happily engaged in this, my book. Please distract me from it using any means necessary.

Also? Love, love, love the girly discussions on your alternate journal. Seriously, they're fabulous.