I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there is a global pandemic going on in the world around us. This is, indisputably, terrible. And, in no uncertain terms, The Global Pandemic (TGP) is considerably more terrible for a great many more people than it is for me. A fact. However, this blog is, and always has been, egocentric and all about me. Therefore, it shall continue to be. As such, I would like to tell you how TGP has affected me.
One of the first signs that TGP was going to affect our day-to-day lives was the supermarkets running out of toilet paper. The second sign was the supermarkets running out of white flour. The third sign was the supermarkets making everyone line up for a mandatory 20 minutes before entering. The fourth sign was the supermarkets running out of wholemeal flour. {lorem ipsum}. Everyone was feeling panicked. And everyone wanted to buy something to make them feel more secure. I was no exception. I was feeling panicked and I wanted to buy something comforting. So I panicked. And I bought a puppy. I panic-bought a puppy.
I panic-bought this puppy
This puppy
One of the best things about buying a puppy is naming it. You can name it whatever you want. I wanted to name my puppy something unique. Something creative. Something original. So after an embarrassingly short search, I settled on Zephyr. It’s a Greek word meaning a little west wind. It was fitting. Unique, creative, original. And then I made a tragic mistake. I told someone. And they looked at me and said, ‘oh that’s so sweet! Zeph and Steph!’ And I thought, ‘huh, I really did just change the ‘S’ of Steph to a Z and remove the ‘t’.’ I basically just called my new puppy, with her unique, creative and original name, Steph. It probably says something very concerning about me as a person and my narcissistic nature, but that analysis is beyond the scope of this document and therefore, for the sake of brevity, we shan’t be exploring this particular idea here.
Who wouldn't want to name her after oneself?
So Zeph moved into my life. She is, for the most part, a delight. She certainly isn’t always a delight however. The times that she wasn’t a delight were highlighted exceptionally harshly, however, because during lockdown I was living with another dog, Ernie (Erd the Turd, as he is affectionately known – I’m not even joking about that). Erd is an inner-city designer dog. He is perfectly trained.
Perfectly-Trained Erd
He never barks. He never chews holes in anything.
Never-Chewed-A-Hole-in-Anything Erd
He never pees inside (in fact, I have it on good authority that he arrived, as a 10 week old puppy, fully house trained). He never vomits.
Never-Vomits Erd
Zephy, by comparison, seemed to be doing all of these things at a rate of knots. At a rate of twice the knots, in fact. Despite Zeph certainly not being responsible for everything for which she was blamed, the house training certainly did take more time than I wanted it to. There were days that she would pee inside, so I would take her outside. Then bring her inside, where she would pee again. So out we would go again. Where she would look at me confused. And in again, where she would pee. And out again where she would look perplexed. And in again where she would empty her bowels all over the floor. All in the space of a very busy 20 minutes.
It's all very confusing
On one particular day, she topped off her impressive indoor pee-record by relieving herself on my bed, which of course resulted in the duvet needing to be put in the wash. Which, of course, resulted in the washing machine flooding. This led to me thinking that perhaps I didn’t really want a puppy after all, but actually just a stuffed toy to play with occasionally.
She slowly wised up to the ways of the world, with the help of Google.
Fortunately, our relationship has progressed past this now. She no longer pees inside (unless we go back to visit Erd the Turd, where she likes to relive the Glory Days).
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