Overheard…

Holiday parties are underway. Conversation is scintillating. It’s good to catch up, brag about the Bama win and learn something new. Very often knowledge is gleaned through supersonic hearing. I’ve always been able to clearly discern the chatter at the next table and, very often, the one next to that. Makes for some interesting meals.

Overheard at a party tonight: A certain friend arranges his wine cabinet with the best bottles on the bottom. That information shall remain stacked in the memory bank for my next visit.

The best overhear of the evening belongs to a dog diaper. It’s a Scottsdale thing. All those years in the Minnesota hinterland, no mention of dog diapers, that’s fer sure. Small dogs aren’t allowed in Minnesota. They freeze without parkas and no self respecting mid-westerner puts clothes on animals so we’re back to the Scottsdale thing, don’t cha know?

I first spied a doggie diaper at a friend’s house. I shook my head, all cartoon like, as the little animal scurried past tail poking from a hole cut into a Pampers. Hmmm, said my brain.

Never having been an aficionado of dogs, cats or lizards for that matter, that pee willy nilly I am a bit lost. My theory is this. Once the owner figures out the dog’s a pee-er, they are already so attached there’s nothing left to do but cut tail holes in baby diapers. Kind of like people who end up with nasty children. Once you realize the kid’s a jerk, you kind of love ’em so you make the best of it.

But tonight dog diapers go a step further. Into that grey area we don’t really need to know. But now we do so all that’s left to do is share. I’m half in, half out of the conversation. Oldest Chicken and Baby Pea are going to the home of some friends. Seems this dad’s daughter got a new dog with a little pee-pee problem. So the dog wears a diaper when it’s at Grandpa’s house ‘cuz the floors are nice and who wants to slide through dog pee in the night? And it’s just a puppy. And it’s cute.

Puppy Grandpa’s wife says, “Did she put a liner in the diaper?” Whaaaa? She catches my side eye. “If you don’t put the liner in it, it’s kind of useless.” I suppose that’s true.

“So in our house,” she continues. “There are things that look like feminine products on the kitchen counter. They’re for the dog diapers.” She worries there may be discarded dog diaper liners strewn about the trash for visitors to see. Her concern is she’s the only chick who lives in the house. And the liners resemble the human variety. I’m catching her drift.

She doesn’t want anyone to think they’re hers; thrown about willy nilly in the kitchen trash, or anywhere else for that matter. I get her dilemma. I have no answers but I get it. Do you tell people up front that the used pee pads do not, in fact, belong to the lady of the house or do you just leave guests flummoxed as to their origin?

It’s a conundrum. Granted, of the first world variety, but a conundrum nonetheless. Who knew?