And lo, the earth vomited chihuahuas

This is Abby. Tell me she is not beautiful and I will tell you, correctly, that you're a dirty liar.

Abby and I run together and it's the most heartbreaking experience. People will literally stop their cars and turn around to ask what kind of dog she is (Australian shepard mix) and then tell me how gorgeous she is. And it's not just the "Hey, cute dog" kind of comment. People stare into her mismatched eyes transfixed, murmuring the kinds of things you'd imagine old men say to strippers, "Oh, you're a pretty lady, aren't you? You're a little heartbreaker." That is, until she emits a piercing "FUCK OFF!" bark and tugs me on our merry way.

This is the kind of public awe and adoration that formed the entire plot of my seventh grade revenge fantasies. Lying in bed at night, all gawky limbs and braces and zits, I would construct elaborate fantasies about how things would be when I finally "blossomed" (my mother's promising term). As fantasies go, they were pitifully one-dimensional-- just one day I would blossom and everyone would be drawn to me like mosquitoes to a bug zapper, breaking themselves against the rock of my beautiful and absolute indifference.



So imagine, now, the irony of escorting around town someone who's achieved this level of careless, captivating beauty, and who doesn't give a shit. Someone who, in fact, takes a special glee in taking a dump in front of her admirers and baring her teeth when they try to pet her rabbit-soft gleaming fur.

This used to be torture when I'd take her running around Town Lake in Austin where glistening, shirtless hunks of chiseled man would trot by, and then skid to a halt to offer panting compliments on my sleek, gorgeous... dog.

Tonight we went on a long, brisk walk around the tiny, tiny town and as usual, Abby stopped traffic, drew strangers from their porches, led toddlers from their yards like the Pied Piper, and set every chained dog in town wailing from the sheer beauty of her dainty little trot. On the course of this walk, I finally understood what it must be like to be Ashlee Simpson-- an uninspired, talentless echo of the original who must nevertheless live in her beautiful sister's orbit because she lacks the strength to break free of Jessica's gravitational pull.


Towards the end of our walk I finally saw the dark side of being so strangely breathtaking. We rounded the corner on what seemed like a quiet street when all of a sudden the bushes on either side of us erupted with chihuahuas, more than I've ever seen before, a veritable pack of the miserable bastards, and they mobbed Abby like papparazzi, swirling around and beneath her in waves and chipping the air with their yips. At first I pulled her leash closer to me and firmly told her, "be good!" meaning, no biting, but by the time we'd gone two blocks with no apologetic owner in site to reign in the ear-splitting, snapping river of dog-vermin, I decided to give her some space in case she needed to throw down. When she didn't seem to get that I was giving her carte blanche to kick ass, I channeled my inner redneck and told her urgently, "Get 'em, Abby! Get 'em!"

To my disappointment, she opted out and instead kept her head high, focusing on some point in the distance until the last of the chihuahuas got tired of the 15:1 footstep ratio and peeled off.

Not only does my dog outshine me, she outclasses me now as well.