My Opinion

I’m an admitted rap music listener. I’m also an admitted terrible music listener. So, it should come as no surprise that right now I kind of love Lil’ Wayne’s latest, Bedrock. (As in, “Call me Mr. Flinstone, I can make your bed rock.”)

In the song, there is a line that goes “She’s watching that Oxygen, I’m watching ESPN.”  Makes sense, right? (Or, you know, as much sense as rap lyrics make in general.) However, every single time I hear the song (which, we’re getting into the millions now probably), I think he’s saying “She’s watching that dachshund jam.”

Seriously. Every. Single. Time.

And then, I smile to myself like a crazy person as I think about a dachshund jam, which in my mind would consist of happily dancing dachshunds. Probably in a club. Obviously. Dachshunds jamming, you know?

And this, my friends, will be the blog entry they refer to when I am finally declared officially insane.

This afternoon my friend Jenn and I went to check out Charlotte’s newest nightclub, Butter. It’s worth noting that Butter is really not the scene for either of us. It’s not Jenn’s scene because, well, her scene is a glass of wine on her couch with her husband and West Wing on the TV. It’s not my scene because while I tend to gravitate towards d-bags (this club’s bread and butter… get it?), I like to find mine in places with less pink on the walls.

So, we showed up to meet with the two PR people for the tour. When we got there, they weren’t there yet, so we made ourselves at home and started wandering around the club, which was mostly filled with workmen in hard hats.

After awkwardly standing on the stairs inside the club for a few minutes, I noticed some guys who looked well dressed (and conspicuously not wearing hard hats) walking towards us. I pointed out to Jenn that pretty soon those guys were going to ask us what we were doing. She looked at me blankly. I realized I would be the one talking to the guys.

A few minutes later, they did just that. I answered and as I did, I looked closely at one of the guys and realized that I vaguely recognized him. He was the owner of Butter. The one who, if I recalled correctly from my US Weekly reading, had dated the Olsen twin. I couldn’t remember his name and I couldn’t remember which twin, but I knew it was him.

He told us the PR guys would be there in a bit and just to make ourselves at home. As we walked away, I noted to Jenn that he was hot. “He is just douchey enough for you,” Jenn said.

“I swear I think he’s the club owner who dated the Olsen twin,” I said.

“Why would he be here?” said Jenn.

“Because they’re opening the club! It would make total sense. This is the grand opening so he’s here checking it out before tonight!  It’s totally him!  Oh my god!  Do you think I could date him?”

I may have gotten a little overly excited.

“Sarah, you’re like the size of seven Olsen twins.”

And this is when the friendship between Jenn and I effectively ended. She spent the next thirty minutes trying to take her foot out of her mouth and using phrases like “they’re unhealthy” and “you’re tall.”

Anyway, a few minutes later the PR folks showed up to give us the tour, during which they introduced us to the owner, Scott Sartiano. As soon as they said his name, my suspicions were confirmed.  Now, at this point, I thought I was playing it cool as I gave Jenn a small smile and nod. Jenn claims I did this mid hand shake/introduction.

I’d deny this, but I’ve never played it cool in my life. Anyway, the real point to this entry is that I’m now less than six degrees of separation from an Olsen twin. Your envy is palpable.

This week I’m dog sitting my parents’ dog, Abby. My parents are headed out of town for the weekend, but somehow Abby ended up at my house on Tuesday morning (that would be four days before the weekend for anyone counting). It’s all rather suspicious really since my parents have been very vague about exactly when they’re going out of town. Last night I called home to ask if they had really just wanted a vacation from Abby. My dad cackled on the other end of the line from his Abby-free house and said I’d never know.

You see, while I love Abby because I love all dogs and because she was actually a Christmas gift to me in 10^th grade, she is, without a doubt, the world’s strangest animal. And, while I try to be kind to her and pet her and console her about missing my mom, she’s pretty much the hardest dog in the world to dog sit. Here are a few examples of my past experiences dog sitting Abby:

1) Within my house she won’t actually leave the kitchen area because apparently she considers the hardwood floors in the rest of the house to be toxic. (It’s worth noting that my parents’ entire house is hardwood floors.) Once I saw her make a run for it from the kitchen to my carpeted bedroom. Due to leaping onto the dining room hardwoods from the tile kitchen she slipped, confirming her worst fears that hardwood floors were in fact dangerous, terrible things not meant to be walked on. She never left the kitchen again.

2) She is on a constant mission to run away. As soon as I let her out into the backyard she goes as fast as her very short legs will carry her very round frame to the back fence, which she patrols, looking for holes. At my old house she escaped twice, which resulted in me climbing over fences in dresses and chasing her two blocks from my house. No idea where she thinks she’s going, but it’s awesome having a dog that desperate to get away from you.

3) She has the creepiest howl in the world. It’s not actually a howl. It’s a long, guttural moan that sounds almost like a machine. And she likes to do it in the middle of the night. Once, when I was dog sitting at my parents’ house she did it all night long. My friend Katie was with me and the only thing that made it more difficult to sleep than Abby howling was Katie repeatedly yelling “shut up Abby” for six hours straight.

4) My mom swears she is house trained. I can say with some authority that’s not true. For years I’ve half suspected that Abby is some strange hybrid of dog and guinea pig. Her droppings confirm this.

5) When you call Abby she runs the other direction. When you pet her, she looks totally distraught. And when you feed her table scraps she sniffs them and then stares at them. Rosie has done her best to teach her that table scraps are meant to be eaten quickly in hopes of getting more, but Abby isn’t learning.

In Abby’s defense, her condition is a result of growing up in a home with a dog that quite possibly was the meanest who ever lived. My parents’ dog, Boots, spent most of her adulthood concocting new ways to traumatize Abby. I kind of suspected that after Boots died, Abby would pull a Benjamin Button and regain her youth and vigor with her newfound freedom from oppression. My dad claims this is the case. He refers to Abby as “the genius.”  Well, this morning “the genius” howled from the hours of three to five and then forgot how to be housetrained all over her bed. I’m not buying it.