Soundtrack to Mary

While reflecting on one’s life, certain images and themes seem to dominate: God, Family, Love, etc. However, it’s occurred to me that I may have an unconscious fixation with Chihuahuas (for the record, I can barely spell “Chihuahua”). I’ve never eaten at a Taco Bell. Paris Hilton means very little to me. Yet Chihuahuas seem to have had a profound effect on me.

Growing up, we had a neighbor across the alley from us who was from Greece. He wore a Greek sailor cap, drove a Rambler, and owned a white Chihuahua named Judy. It’s safe to say that Judy may not have appreciated the hand she was dealt in this life, as she seemed to have yearned to be an Irish wolfhound. In the 1970s, dogs were less about ornamentation and more about scaring people off of property, and Judy was quite effective at that duty. On the same block lived a German shepherd with anger management issues, and quite honestly, I was more afraid of Judy’s frenzied wrath.

Coincidentally, my aunt had a Chihuahua named Chico who seemed to dig me. I can almost still hear his little black toenails clicking on the kitchen linoleum. There aren’t a ton of photos of me as a kid, but the one everyone remembers is me at age four sitting on a picnic table with my arm around what appeared to be a sock puppet, but was actually Chico. According to family lore, Chico was killed by an airborne shingle. A careless roofer next door was responsible. I must have told the shingle story for fifteen years before I learned that Chico had in fact survived the shingle missile, but died of cancer years later. I got a chance to ask writer Chuck Klosterman my favorite question: “If you lost both arms in a horrible freak accident, and your choice was to have no arms or have a Chihuahua’s paws surgically attached, which would you prefer?” His answer stunned me. “What would be the advantage?”

“Geez, Chuck, I don’t know. How about you’d be known as that writer from Spin with Chihuahua hands?” While taking a walk around the lake, my boyfriend and I passed a woman walking an unusually shaky, irritated-looking Chihuahua. “Poor nervous rat on a string,” I commented as we passed, to which my beloved suggested I use that as the name of my future autobiography. Thanks, honey.

I love you, too.

Email Mary at popularcreeps@yahoo.com.