August 12, 2012

Great Expectations---Results Not So Much

I was mostly ready for her visit when Lisa called and confirmed that she was coming.  She had e-mailed me on Wednesday saying she’d try and visit the following Monday or Tuesday.  However, by bedtime Sunday evening, I hadn’t heard anything more.  Given this, I started to figure that she and her friends weren’t going to visit.  But she was on the phone and saying that they’d be there in just over an hour. 

An hour----I could straighten up the bottom floor of the house then scoop the dogyard and fill everybody’s water dish----barely, but I could.  The scary reality was that Lisa had called from the intersection of I-90 and Montana 200 and I routinely cover the distance from there to my house in fifty minutes. 

I scooped the last bit of excrement just two minutes after the one hour mark.  Lisa and her friends showed up about ten minutes later.  As their car rolled down my driveway, I changed into a “clean” tee shirt---it still had rust stains but I was more concerned with fragrance than appearance.  I then popped out of the house and welcomed them.   

After they arrived, three things happened in rapid succession----they got out of the car, all wearing dresses or skirts, they told me how much they loved dogs, and they saw the dogs.  The first comment was, “They’re all so beautiful!”

To date, I can count on one finger the number of times three pretty intelligent women have visited me.  A troika of University of California college professors, and not a bad leg among the six.  I’m pretty sure I can remember the colors of their eyes too. 

This was starting off well.

Yahoo is running a series of videos called Mansome.  In their words: “MANSOME will bring daily advice for the guy who never compromises in rising above masculine mediocrity. Y! Originals has gathered the greatest men's lifestyle experts to bring you the ultimate guide to grooming, survival, culinary arts, and sports.” 

During the last twenty years, I’ve educated myself in these particular curricula by reading Spencer for hire mysteries---I’m not planning on switching. Given this, I hadn’t even thought about checking out what Yahoo had posted.  That was until one particular episode caught my eye.  The episode had as its title something to the effect of, “The Right Dog with Which to Pick Up Chicks.”   Given that I consider myself to at least be something of a dog man, as well as the fact that Spencer never delved into which dogs were most effective for attracting women, I figured the video might provide some useful information.  So I watched.

Mansome approached the question by parading a guy with three different dogs in front of a panel of women and asking them how they felt.  The dogs they had were: A Brussels Griffon, a toy dog---a Brittany mix, a medium sized mutt,  and da da da da-----a Siberian Husky.  Three attractive women, clearly not college professors, described their reactions.

The only positive thing said about the Brussels Griffon  was that the owner was probably a nurturer.  Along with this came that he might pay more attention to the dog than to a date and that he might have a small penis.  The Brittany mix told the women that this was a family man----he might be legitimately single but more likely he wasn’t.  If he was single, he’d be stable.  If not, hitting on them meant he was disloyal.  Then came the Sibe.  The reactions included everything from the guy being artistic to having the strength and ruggedness to deal with a big dog.  Based on the panel’s evaluation, a guy walking a Siberian Husky in a park should be able to pick up women at will. 

Lisa is married, so I didn’t expect the seductive powers of my kennel of 21 Sibes and one unknown to influence her, but that left two other women with unknown relationship status’.  Showing off my pack a bit seemed like a good idea.  Lisa said they didn’t have a ton of time----but probably half an hour.  That would be enough.  Even though it was a bit warm and definitely muggy for Montana, I decided to let the gang have yard time. 

The dogs were spectacular.  Even with the heat, everybody was bouncing around like kids during recess.  Their energy and joy complemented how pretty they were. 

The one downside was that about half of the pack wanted to jump up and greet the guests, but even this turned itself around.  Cameo was particularly persistent---which gave me a chance to show off my actually being the alpha. Of the 22 dogs I own, only Cammer knows a sit command.  She’s also only part Siberian---she obeyed the command with enthusiasm.  A minute or two later, the dog they kept on saying was really cute, Gaiya, stretched across the house I was leaning on and gave me a set of staccato kisses.   And when the time was up, the dogs each came back to their houses to be hooked up in perfect sequence including personality caused variations as well as an adequate amount of Siberian indifference to commands.  In spite of a rust stained tee shirt, I think I outdid some well dressed dude walking a single Sibe.  

Sadly, in spite of this show, my guests weren’t overwhelmed by the seductive power of my dogs.  The best I was able to do was to pass on a couple of cards and plug my blog.  Rest assured, my letter to the editor of Mansome, complaining about the devastation I experienced as a result of false expectations its show engendered, is in the mail.