Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner by Lancaster Jen

Author:Lancaster, Jen [Lancaster, Jen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101585207
Publisher: NAL Hardcover
Published: 2012-05-01T06:00:00+00:00

C·H·A·P·T·E·R S·I·X·T·E·E·N

Ring of Fire

“I’ve got it!”

I dash down the stairs to the door, shoving pushy, barky dogs out of the way before grabbing money off the bookshelf.

I slip out the door to trade the cash for a brown paper bag from which exotic spices emanate. The restaurant must be busy tonight; the owner usually delivers the order himself, largely because his young daughter is in love with Libby and she likes to ride along. But that’s no surprise; every little girl loves Libby.

Physically, there’s not much difference between Maisy and Libby—they both have strong, stocky bodies and big, square heads. Maisy with her super-smiley face and tan and white coloring actually looks less foreboding than Libby, but Maisy isn’t nearly as popular with the Elmo set. Being around Maisy is like strolling a Moroccan souk—one second, you’re minding your own business, innocently perusing a lovely display of woven wicker baskets, and the next, BAM! A cobra pops out ninja-style and attaches to your face.

Granted Maisy’s a kisser, never a biter, but it’s really hard to explain the difference to a wailing kindergartner. [We give families an extensive briefing before they’re even allowed to meet the dogs. Regardless of warnings, the kids are always, “I love doggie kisses!” but they fail to anticipate the French part.]

Libby’s equally enthusiastic, yet more gentle. Earlier this summer my friend Becca was over with her family. We kept the dogs inside for a while because we knew her little girl was terrified of them. Flash forward an hour and an introduction—instead of swimming, her daughter spent the afternoon leading Libby around with her finger looped through her collar, while Libby obeyed every command given to her.

What can I say? Libby’s a charmer.

Of course, later that night, Libby counter-surfed herself a packet of lightbulbs, chewing everything to shards on the kitchen rug. [She was fine. The only one who ended up bleeding was me when I cleaned up the mess.]

The next day I received a thank-you note from Becca reading, “My daughter wants a dog. Your dog. Beware a preschooler in princess shoes scaling the fence to dognap.” So it’s no surprise that the daughter of the Thai restaurateur always wants to see the puppy. Libby has that kind of effect on kids.

The Thai place also knows us because it’s pretty much the only delivery we order. When we lived in the city, we could get every possible variety of ethnic foods, from Afghan to Vietnamese. But the unfortunate trade-off for safe streets and an outstanding public school system is that there are almost no decent restaurants. We tried ten different, disgusting delivery joints [Although it’s difficult to ruin a pizza, it can be done.] until we found the Thai/Japanese place and now we’re frequent fliers.

I bring the bag upstairs because we’re allowed to eat in the TV room only on delivery nights. Granted, the worst that can happen is a small soy sauce spill, yet we’ve created an elaborate system of carpet-saving checks and balances, largely because Libby’s wreaked such havoc on them.

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