Good job, New York Times, for the exposé on Amazon as great, big bully Of course, I read the article from the perspective of a Seattleite who was not only once married to an Amazonian, and who also knows about a bajillion people who work(ed) there, but on top of all that, I read the article from the perspective of a scorned Prime Member. See, Amazon and I have had a recent falling out when they charged me, a Prime Member (and in the words of Jean Shepard (author of “A Christmas Story”), “thus entitled to all the honors and benefits occurring thereunto”), for return shipping. This was the first time this had ever happened, so although it is apparently Amazon’s policy to charge shipping on all returns, they never apply this policy, at least they hadn’t to me, or at least not until the day that I tried to return four of the six items which had arrived on my doorstep, shipped overnight with exacting precision and lightening speed, because dear lord in heaven, I needed shower curtain rings, in both bronze and brushed nickel (I wanted to try them both, which is totally reasonable, I think, contrary to my husband’s skewed thinking; but seriously, who knew that our current shower rings were brushed nickel? Must I check every detail before placing an order?).
Naturally, I contacted Amazon immediately to allow them the opportunity to right their wrong, but I think this may have resulted in my account being flagged. Proudly, I only used the word fuck once in my communications with the service department (across all four people I had to talk with). They finally relented and gave me free shipping for those returns. Of course, I have not placed one order since this incident, and it’s been like a whole week, and I’m really itching for Amazon to bring me a tube of mascara, or a singular hair scrunchy, because I don’t want to walk the four blocks to Rite Aid, or, really, drive to Rite Aid after work. What I want is for someone in Kentucky to race around a giant warehouse to find my single bottle of vitamin D, get it on a plane, and to my doorstep, by tomorrow morning. My point with this? Whatever disparaging accusations thrown at Amazon in the NYT article are no doubt rooted in reality, given that Amazon is a big meanie (at least to people who have a tendency to abuse the return policy).
Let me derail slightly: a Facebook friend posted a link to this same Amazon article, and commented that, as a former employee, he was (more than) fairly compensated for his work, which was often demanding and time consuming, but of course, no one was forcing him or anyone else to work there. Yes, I get that. And, I understand his point that people today aren’t willing to work hard to get what they want (agreed). But, when I was a bus driver, there were days that I was dangerously tired, nodding off, or on the verge of tears (and once actually crying) because I JUST NEEDED TO PEE and had missed my breaks because of traffic, and then people would yell at me (because they lack the ability to realize that I didn’t just miraculously appear from the heavens at their bus stop, but that I actually came from somewhere, somewhere that had traffic), so yeah, that was totally by choice that I worked there. But I’m also a fan of legal working conditions such as employees getting breaks, so, my apologies, let’s agree to disagree, because fuck that bullshit.
Of course, this tirade isn’t about Amazon, despite the buildup. Or my crazy bitterness about being a bus driver. It is, however, about the morning the NYT published that Amazon piece, which resulted in a news story about Jeff Bezos going nuts (fun fact: my ex-husband once urinated next to Mr. Bezos). This is actually a story about a realization I had that same morning, and how uncomfortably close this realization jived with the whole Amazon exposé: what I realized was that my pugs–more so than anyone else in my life–want me to fail.
Now, in my comparison of Amazon to Pug Ownership, I’m not saying that Amazon wants their employees to fail. And maybe it’s unfair to say that my pugs want me to fail. But, once I cease being of any use (providing food), my pugs move on to bigger and better things (sleep), which sounds a little bit Amazonian: if you stop producing, you stop being of value.
Here’s how that morning (and my epiphany) played out: handicapped by my bowl of frosted-wheat cereal in one hand and coffee in the other, I ran the usual gauntlet of cat and dogs as I headed to the couch for breakfast and local news (I love local news; I love the low-production value and their perverted sense of what is important, such as price hikes at Starbucks, OR JEFF BEZOS FREAKING OUT).
As I tripped over first one pug, and then another, noting that they remained unmoved both physically and psychologically by the giant that is I, Human, it occurred to me that they hope and pray for my downfall on a daily basis. Because, having already been served their breakfast, and having already been provided the opportunity to meet their “outdoor needs,” I firmly believe that the last hope of the pugs before resigning themselves to sleep is that there is still a chance that I might drop my food. And given my track-record for not dropping food (at least, not on the floor–on my chest is another matter), they resort to using their super stealth cloaking abilities to blend into their surroundings, and manage to be underfoot (miraculously on every step even though there are only two of them), nudging me toward misfortune.
So there I was, having arrived at the couch, with one pug clawing at me to SIT DOWN and the other one crying like an old lady being stabbed, both trying desperately to get into my lap so they could rest their fat lips only centimeters from my cereal bowl, and simultaneous to this was the local news coverage of the NYT Amazon article.
A PHILOSOPHY OF PETS
Go ahead. Ask me how I feel about puppy mills. I don’t feel good about them. In fact, dog breeding in general seems like a sketchy thing. Before getting our (“our” being my ex, Chad and me) first pug, I added myself to the Seattle Pug Rescue waiting list. Every week on their website they would post pics of ugly, malformed, medically needy pugs who were looking for their forever home. “Seymour would do best in a home without stairs.” “Matilda is missing one leg, but has a lot of heart!” (probably congenital). Skillet was my favorite (and I’m calling dibs on that name for the next pet). I don’t know why; he was no different than any of the other pugs on the site: he had a special diet, he was missing an eye, he was found abandoned in a marsh, he was a clown. But you know what? EVERYONE describes pugs as “clowns,” which I gotta tell you, is false. “They just want to make their owners laugh!” claim pug books and websites. Clearly not written by true pug owners (or maybe by an owner trying to rid themselves of a pug).
Pug-Ownership is not about the pug trying to please you, but about you pleasing the pug. And also? I actually kind of “get” the abandoning of your pug in a marsh. IF YOU OWN A PUG, YOU KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT. Nearly every pug owner I met, I saw cry at some point. Goddamn, pugs are EXHAUSTING, perhaps as exhausting as my 50 year old alcoholic sister who refuses to wear a bra or her dentures, all in the name of comfort.
Anyway, the pug rescue never called. They continued to taunt me with pictures of pugs who I felt would have been perfect for me (in that they were a pug and in that I am impatient). I filled out the applications, I sent reminder emails, but after six months, I was like, forget this, I need a pug and I need it by the close of business. So, where do you go when you need a pug immediately? Craigslist, naturally: a pleasant place where only good things happen. There we found an ad for reasonably priced pedigreed pugs ($300-$500) at a breeder’s place only 20 minutes south of our house. At this time, I was still a pug racist, and when we responded to the ad, I asked the breeder if there were any fawn pugs left, and we were told, yes, definitely. So off we go to get a pug.
Chad and I rolled up to a down-on-its-luck apartment complex, which seemed weird for a “breeder,” but probably not so weird for a puppy mill (SHIT). We park the car (“Is it locked? Make sure it’s locked”), walk to the apartment, and before knocking, we notice a wheelchair just sitting outside, tucked under the staircase, like maybe that’s their smoking chair or maybe it was just abandoned after the sudden death of its owner. No matter. Knock, knock, knock. The door swings open. Cigarette smoke bellows out. Our eyes–surprised to not see a person at face level– track downward in unison to a legless man, emerging like any good illusionist might emerge from smoke, who ushered us into his home. Or breeding facility.
➤Helpful hint for readers who are also anti-puppy mill but in the market for a puppy: breeders probably don’t chain smoke around the puppies to the point that the room is broken into two distinct atmospheres.
Our host parted the smoke-curtain (for our knees, at least), to reveal the joy that is PUG, delivered straight from heaven to this…kiddie pool. A kiddie pool in the living room. When I was growing up, my parents bred one of our dogs, until it was hit by a truck, and I remember the whelping box. It wasn’t much more than boards nailed together to keep the pups by the momma, but you know, that’s kinda my point, it was just boards nailed together and took minimal effort to build (maybe less effort than getting a kiddie pool, especially if you are legless, and traveling by bus (I assume) to Target), and yet, somehow, the fact that it was wood and had some semblance of permanency gave it legitimacy.
Back to the puppy mill: Surprise, the dude was a Filthy Liar, there were no fawn pugs left, and we were left with our choice of black pugs. But thank goodness! Because I immediately learned that wonderful things come in wiggly black packages. I assume Chad was there by my side during all of this, but I don’t remember because of the overwhelming hormonal surge in my body that led to my immediate lactation. I collapsed to my knees. It was a kiddie pool filled with little black baked potatoes, because that’s how big they are, maybe two and half pounds. But? Yes, baby pugs are small, but they aren’t that small, at least not at 8 weeks (when it is legal to sell them). ANOTHER RED FLAG OPPORTUNITY: Turns out, they were only six weeks old, and according to Filthy Liar, the momma was no longer interested in feeding them, so like any reputable breeder, he decided to just sell them off (again, I remember my mom bottle-feeding pups who wouldn’t nurse, so you know, there are options).
Up to that point, my only pets as an adult had been a handful of cats, two-thirds of which died under my watch (the third NEVER DIED, despite my prayers to, please god, just take this fucking cat). Naturally, the pug we selected was the scrawniest, shyest, littlest guy, probably voted by his littermates as “most likely to die young.”
And God said to me, “You shall name him Atticus.”
Our sweet Atticus actually grew into an amazing pug that would have been perfect for breeding (but maybe all pug mothers think that): the upper limits of height for a pug, truly living up to the word STUD; the coveted double-curl tail; and eyes that faced forward. Sadly (happily?), he was castrated, but not before I could obsessively talk about the size of his testicles— which were HUGE (and yes, I once even went so far as to nudge them with the eraser-tip of a pencil). Sweet, wonderful, cry-baby Atticus. My pride and joy. Who may or may not be pedigreed (surprisingly enough, Filthy Liar couldn’t locate the paperwork but promised to mail it to us. We didn’t actually care). And, who only poops in the house sometimes.
REDRAWING THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT IS ACCEPTABLE
Pugs. You love them, or you’ve never met one (or you are my fascist sister, single-minded in her dogged love of cats (Get it? Dogged??)). I was always a self-proclaimed Big Dog Person. Growing up, I had very few interactions with small dogs, with the exception of my grandma’s poodle, Petey (per my sister Hattie: “Poods are dicks. Remember Petey? Dirty, gray dick”). My first true pug-interaction was with Harley, who belonged to an autistic boy that my (non-fascist) sister was watching. She was watching the pug, not the boy. Was that clear? I’m not sure. Anyway, Harley wasn’t big on looking people in the eye. He seemed to lack emotions, and didn’t really want to play or interact (not unlike an autistic boy–I wasn’t sure if this was learned behavior on the pug’s part or not). Instead, he insisted on sitting in my lap, facing away, and farting, all accompanied by the arhythmic sound of his asthmatic breathing– I was in love! (Why isn’t that a word? Arhythmic? It sounds so good when I say it).
This is probably a pretty fair description of most pugs. I mean, actually, they will look you in the eye, but only in attempts to control your soul. But this isn’t to say that pugs aren’t good pets. Although, if pet-intelligence is a concern, read on, because even though pugs fall around the “intelligent enough” area of most dog IQ charts, the cold reality is that those ratings are based on how good of a worker the dog is, and if the dog is obedient. Personally, I can’t think of anything smarter than the concept of Management and the suckering of others to do your job. For example: if my pug is chewing his bone on the couch, and it drops to the floor because he can’t get a good purchase on it with his fat little face, he has a freaking MELTDOWN. And I immediately bend over, grab the bone, and return it to his waiting paws. THAT’S PRETTY FUCKING SMART. A more current (and better designed, in my opinion) ranking of dogs looks beyond “intelligence” and also includes an element of desirability. So here we are: pugs are desirable, and pugs are clever. By the way, you know which breed is dumb? A pointer. Sure, that pointer works for you, and can hunt or do whatever it is that pointers do (I’m not certain what they do, beyond pointing), but they are not clever.
Back to that ‘obedience equals intelligence’ thing. So, obviously I disagree with this, but I will concede that obedience can be a desirable trait in a dog. Because general desirability aside, pugs are stubborn and willful in kind of a negatively aggressive way. Some websites will tell you that pugs are adaptable. THIS IS WHOLLY UNTRUE; pugs don’t adapt to shit. If they don’t care for something, you better fix it, and fix it fast, or else people will start calling 911 to report your violent attack on a thousand orphans, because what else could that blood curdling noise be??? Here’s a quote from PetPugDog.Com: “Most owners will agree that the Pug knows what he wants…And he’ll use a few different techniques to see if his owner will cave in” (here are a few subcategories on this website: Stubborness, Hard to Train, Begging).
And yet? There is an addiction to pugs. Pug owner Trudy Ann will tell you this. She says, “A pug is like having a snotty, snorty, stinky, cuddly slice of snicker doodle heaven.” And it’s true. Now that Michael and I are safely married, I have learned that 1) Michael doesn’t care for their heavy musk, which I gotta tell you, I LOVE this smell. I like letting them sleep on my robe and stink it up, then slip it on and wallow. I huff their little paws, which smell like Fritos. But also? Michael wasn’t too keen on 2) the voice I use when speaking to the pugs. I’m telling you, it’s like mother-ese, you know that phenomenon where worldwide people speak to babies in a higher pitched voice? That’s what I do. AND THAT’S WHAT HE NOW ALSO DOES. Pugs are like freaking babies with those big eyes, with their toddler-like independence and matching intelligence. You want to swaddle them up and breastfeed.
Part of living the Pug Life is accepting that every tangible item in your world will in some way represent your ownership of a pug. Pug salt and pepper shakers. Pug doormat. Pug kitchen timer. Pug purse and pug wallet. Funny pug tee-shirt. Pug books (expect to get multiples of the more common versions of these). Monopoly is now Pugopoly. Pug bumper stickers, coffee mugs, IUDs, calendars, and crafts. AND I’M NOT COMPLAINING. I love it all. But that’s my point… you will, too, so expect it and get used to it.
You know what else? Good luck stopping at one. Have you noticed how rare it is to see someone walking one pug? We got our second pug in an attempt to provide Atticus with a playmate other than us. Magnum is two years younger than Atticus. We named him after Magnum PI to balance out the pretentiousness of naming Atticus after To Kill a Mockingbird. Magnum is a useless drain of money with googly eyes, a bendy-spine, and a penchant for eating poop from any source–oh, and once I found him in a corner of the yard that we had been spraying with poison in a vain attempt to kill a raspberry bush; he was on the cardboard box that was set over that stupid bush, gnawing on something disgusting, which upon closer investigation, turned out to be a DEAD RAT, no doubt dead from the poison (and does he at least entertain Atticus, giving his life purpose? No. He just MOUNTS him).
WHEN ALL YOU HAVE ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH
So, is it worth it? To live with what Sean, the handler of Teddy Jo, calls “a 1970s Elvis”? For non-pug-owners, I can’t even begin to capture for you the inconceivable expense of pug ownership, because like 1970s Elvis, pugs are gluttons and will eventually (probably more than once) eat something they shouldn’t that requires a trip to the vet. Or eat too fast and get food in their nose and be unable to breath. Or their face folds will get infected. Or you’ll learn after a $5,000 vet trip that their curly-cue tail is actually part of their spine, now also curly-cued thanks to years of inbreeding, which is why your pug is suddenly paralyzed. They will not tolerate toe nail clippings, which means every trip to the vet is accompanied by a lecture about properly caring for your pet (after they finish chastising you for overfeeding your pug). You will learn that dogs have anal sacs full of lubricating oil, and that some breeds (PUGS) are unable to properly secrete these fishy-stinky oils on their own (except on your shirt/couch/carpet) so you will need to take them in for regular “anal gland expressions.”
But what fun! A little dog to buy outfits for (first, unless designed specifically for a pug, that outfit you just bought will not fit over their barrel chest; and second, they don’t like little outfits anyway). And all those pricey dog-toys you found at the indie-pet-shop, which are guaranteed to keep your pup entertained for hours? It will remain untouched in the $150 pug-themed solid wood toy box you bought for him. But surely they would like to play fetch with this tiny stuffed duck toy you just bought for $20? Yes. That does happen, except by the third round of tossing, the pug is done, as in, from 100% interest to 0% interest, like a switch, and walks away from the game to check on dinner. And, by the way, could you please follow him and feed him? Because it’s 1pm and he’s hungry and so it’s dinner time, right?
So, is it worth it? Especially when you can fill that void in your heart by shopping online at Amazon? Maybe you’re being drawn to the pug as a response to your shopping experiences with Amazon, and their accompanying cold, cruel outlook on life (and shipping costs?) and you falsely believe that shopping isn’t enough? Maybe. The truth is, the feelings that go with Pug Ownership are similar to the feelings of Amazon employees, who receive the conditional love of their employer, knowing that the more productive employees are being loved just a little bit more than the less productive ones, who may have cancer (per the NYT article). Don’t fool yourself into thinking that a pug will love you as-is, or that pugs don’t care about your flaws, because none of this is true. They are fickle, fragile, jerkfaces. And ohmygod, only in retrospect I can see how incomplete my life was before The Pugs.