Valet

Will someone please help me disrobe?

Okay, sorry for the racy first line. I didn’t mean it. Well, I mean, I meant it, but just… don’t volunteer until you know what it entails.

Also sorry for the title to this post, because I don’t mean “valet.” Google is telling me that my request is actually for a “lady’s maid” (because only MEN can have valets [insert angry emoji face here]), but, let’s face it, I ain’t no lady, and a “maid” (sheesh! What a term!) is certainly not what I want. Not really. I just want someone to assist me in getting ready for bed at night. Because, oh my dragons, by the time I finish with the nighttime routine for my fur crew, I’m too tired to do it myself.

At 8:00p.m., I take Thomas outside for maybe the last time of the evening. Maybe not. He may need to go out again in an hour if he’s too scared to, um, accomplish the task we set out to accomplish. That could happen if any neighbor on either side of me or behind me is in his/her/their yard doing anything (or nothing at all; he sniffs from the garage door—if the coast isn’t clear, he doesn’t advance). And by ‘taking him outside,’ I do mean going out there with him. Every time. Lucky you, all of you with dogs who can open the back door at 8:00p.m., tell your dog to get out there and get busy, then close the door and go back to watching TV or Netflix or Amazon Prime or the new political drama unfolding on Facebook.

Oops. I digress.

Anyway, since we’ve lived here (in Calimesa, in a “senior community” of “manufactured homes”), Thomas no longer has his seven-foot-tall block wall to shield him from possible intruders, so he doesn’t feel safe going outside alone (unless it’s 2:00a.m., at which time he is so happy to be outside trotting and sniffing, he’s been known to do zoomies). So I go out with him, in summertime, swatting at mosquitoes for the 15 or 20 minutes it takes him to get on task, in the winter, bundled in a jacket, hood up, staring at the stars until my neck hurts.

Thom gets a Greenie when he comes back inside, and the girls (Purrl and Jenny, who are cats, if you’re new to the blog) get a few treats. Dry cat food bowls are topped off (because heaven help us if a cat reaches that critical point sometime in the night when she can see the bottom of her bowl). Purrl is still on a diet, so hers must be measured carefully. Jenny is remaining thin on her Cannidae and Blue Buffalo diet, so I can just dump hers in—but I have to stir it around with my fingers. Why? Because she drools while she eats, so all the crunchies on the bottom of the bowl are all stuck together.

But back to Purrl for a second: I have to stand next to her at the bathroom counter while she eats. If I leave, she stops eating, slowly descends the custom-made stairs I had built for her after she lost her sight, and sits in the doorway until I return to the bathroom, at which point she will trundle back up the stairs and sit on the counter, waiting for me to pet her. Then she resumes eating. How did this happen??? Foolish me. Her fur becomes a mess of knots when she sheds in the summer, so last year I started brushing her every evening while she was eating--because at any other time, I might just have my arm shredded or poisonous fangs sunk into my fingers. She began to associate eating with being groomed (as kittens do), and here we are. Sigh.

Water bowls are also topped off (in between encouraging Purrl to eat her food as I tiptoe away), and while I’m in the master bath, I floss and brush my teeth. (That’s right, floss. My dental hygienist loves me.)

When Thomas finishes his Greenie, if he hears me brushing my teeth, he knows it’s story time, and he runs happily to the carpet outside the bathroom door and plops himself down like a kid in kindergarten, so excited for what’s coming next.

What’s coming next is me stretching myself on the floor beside him, giving him pets and scratches and a back massage while I tell him his adoption story. It starts like this:

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, you were the most beautiful dog at the shelter. But it wasn’t always so….

I’ve told him the story so many times in five and a half years, I’m sure he has it memorized.

As you can imagine, conducting this ritual with him at the end of the day—after all the other pet work is done and I’ve cleared the sink of dishes and locked all the doors and turned off all the lights save one lamp next to the bed that I read by—can induce a certain level of relaxation (in me, if not in him). Of course, Thomas is a dog, after all, so he’s always coated with a certain minimum of grime, which means when the story is finally over, I have to find the energy to get myself up off the floor, get my hands washed, and then get ready for bed. But by that time, I just want to lie there and go to sleep.

So here’s my thought: This is the “generation of convenience,” as I recently learned on NPR. There are people who perform the service of doing things for others so they don’t have to be inconvenienced—like fetching your favorite fast food and bringing it to you or picking up your dry cleaning or, as my daughter continues to remind me, grocery shopping for you and delivering the groceries to your home. Why can’t there be an app that I can use to summon a lady’s maid? Remember all those scenes in Downton Abbey with “Anna” helping “Lady Mary” remove her clothes and jewelry and prepare for bed? That’s all I need. Just someone to pop over, untie my shoes, take out my earrings, brush my hair out, and help me get out of my jeans without falling on the floor. (Yes, it has indeed happened in the past, and I have no doubt it will again.)

Is that too much to ask?

I’m going to tag this post with “Entrepreneur.” Wait ten seconds, then look online; I’ll bet someone will be on Gofundme asking for money to start a "Lady's Maid" service.