“No, of course not,” I dutifully agreed, though privately I was thinking that her entire house was going to be overrun in very short order. The idea of so many miniature Princess Prissys running around and probably peeing and pooping all over the antique Persian rugs and shiny marble floors wasnotappealing. Becauseguesswho was going to have to clean it all up? Not to mention that the idea of getting two of her dogs hitched just so they could have a litter was ridiculous!
Now, lest you think I’m being mean about a poor old slightly eccentric woman who just wanted to have a little fun with her doggos, let me tell you that this dog wedding was running somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty grand. That’s right—you heard me.Fifty thousand dollars for a wedding between two dogs.
The dress that Prissy was wearing contributed a lot to that exorbitant price tag—it was a Vera Wang. I mean, I didn’t even know Vera Wangmadewedding dresses for dogs, but apparently she had made this one and it had cost a literal fortune.
It was a fluffy confection with a beaded bodice and collar and a long white train with a hole cut in it for the spoiled little dog’s fluffy tail to stick through. There was also a tiara and little white satin slippers to go with it. It was utterly ridiculous and expensive enough that I could have paid the rent on my crappy apartment for a whole year if I had what it cost.
Mr. Piddlesworth’s tux hadn’t beenquiteas expensive, but it was still more than you’d pay for a human tux by far. (It also had a little black top hat that I had to admit was cute—though it was hard to make him keep it on.)
When you added in the flowers, the lighting, the refreshments for the dogs— which were being catered by the Pampered Pooch Café—as well as the refreshments for the human guests, which were being catered by someplace else, it all added up to a crazy amount. I knew because I helped my Aunt “keep her finances in order” so I had seen all the receipts.
So yeah—I wasn’t holding my breath that my Great Aunt would put me in her will and leave me independently wealthy. What with the designer doggy wardrobe and the canine nuptials I would be helping with, she was burning through her income as fast as possible. And me? Well, I was just trying to make ends meet until I could find another full-time job at a library with more stable hours. And in the meantime, I was going to get Princess Prissy from the groomers for her “big day.”
Thinking that this was going to be interesting to say the least, I drove my ancient Honda Civic over to The Pawfectionist—Prissy’s groomer.
The Pawfectionist—“small dogs our specialty”—was a free-standing building with a candy pink awning out front. The awning had pictures of cute little dogs in tiny tubs taking bubble baths and wearing shower caps and basically looking perfectly adorable. A sign in the window read, “By appointment only—no walk-ins please.”
It was the kind of place that charges you two hundred dollars to wash your dog and trim its toenails—a fee that Aunt Maizy happily paid because she said they did “such a good job on my babies” as she called her dogs. Most of them went there weekly and she had about seven of them, so you can bet the grooming fees added up.
But I wasn’t the one footing the bill—I was just there to get the dog. It wasn’t lost on me that my Great Aunt’s Pomeranian was getting married when I myself was unable to get my fiancé to set a date. Don always put me off, saying that he was too busy or too tired to talk about “logistics” of our own big day whenever I asked, so for the past year, I had mostly stopped asking.
This hadn’t stopped my mom from asking me about when I was going to get married, however. She wanted to see me all “settled and happy,” like my older sister, Taylor.
I love my older sister, but she’s kind of perfect, which makes it really hard to live up to the example she’s setting. She’s the CEO of her own company which makes energy drinks for women. Because, as Taylor says, “it’s such a male dominated market that we need a female-based product to even the balance.”
Her company is called “Kombucha Zoom!!!”and their marketing is all about empowerment and female success and self-actualization. I’ve tasted the energy drinks and they’re not half bad, if you don’t mind a medicinal aftertaste, which I guess the target demographic doesn’t, since they’re selling like crazy. Taylor was even approached by the Head of Acquisitions from Pepsi, who might want to buy the brand and take it national.
In addition to that, my big sister has an adoring husband named James who’s “in finance” as he says, and two perfect twin boys named Ansell and Ashton, which seems kind of mean since hanging monikers like that on kids is justaskingto get them bullied. At least in my opinion.
So yeah—my big sis is doing okay for herself and I’m sure my mom would have liked to see me doing as well as she was. But since I lacked Taylor’s entrepreneurial spirit, (and also her five-foot nine willowy frame and long blonde hair,) it wasn’t going to happen.
While Taylor was a natural leader, I was always the quiet, chubby kid who would rather sit in a corner and read a book. I made excellent grades in anything English or language arts related andbarelyscraped by in any kind of math. So starting my own business was out of the question.
Which was probably why I was single and scooping doggy poo as my side gig instead of happily married to a gorgeous husband with two perfect children while single-handedly running my own company. Sorry, Mom.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that my life at that moment wasnotgoing as planned. Not that I planned to be abducted by aliens. But I digress—back to Prissy, the Pomeranian bride-to-be.
I pushed open the door of The Pawfectionist, which smelled like a mixture of wet dog and fancy floral spray, and gritted my teeth against theYip-yip-yip!of their front doorbell. Instead of a regular bell to let them know when clients arrived, they had some kind of programmable thing. So of course the owner thought it would be cute to make the bell sound a tiny dog barking and the shrill sound always set my teeth on edge.
Now, lest you yourself are a dog owner and you’re starting to hate me, let me tell you—I don’t have anything against dogs in general—it was just Princess Prissy that got on my nerves. And I really wouldn’t have minded her so much if she hadn’t bitten me so often.
Most dogs are okay, though Iwilladmit to being more of a cat person. I was, in fact, half-owner of an outdoor cat named Mr. Kittles—the other half-owner being my elderly neighbor, Mrs. Simpkins.
We took it in turn to feed Mr. Kittles who was an orange striped tomcat with a rusty purr and a friendly disposition. He was missing one eye and part of an ear which made him look kind of like a feline pirate, but he was quick to come running when he heard the sound of a can of soft cat food being opened and he always twined lovingly around my legs. Also, he never tried to bite.
Despite theyip-yip-yipof the door alarm, there was no one up front in the fancy pet salon. I spent a moment looking over their “list of services” which was displayed in fancy lettering on a chalkboard at the front—much like a menu at an exclusive bistro.
Shampoo, condition, blow-out--$120
Pawdicure--$75
Simple Trim--$75
Full Shave--$100
The whole shebang!—Shampoo, condition, blow-out,
simple trim and pawdicure--$250