baileystory-blog1

[baileystory-blog1]

        Have you ever been unhappy with who you are and wanted to become someone that you are not? Well, I certainly have. It was an ordinary, lazy Sunday afternoon and I was home all alone. I have not seen my owner, Teddy, the whole day ever since the morning. The air smelled fresh from last night’s ponderous summer rain and the morning sunshine shone through the soaring orange tree which Teddy has been growing since the beginning of summer. I was lazily lying in the backyard, enjoying the warm sun, thinking about what I should do to save myself from this boredom. “Only if I was a human…” I thought. Oh hi, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Bailey and I am a Maltese living under Terry for about three years now. I like playing fetch with Teddy and enjoy going on a walk, basically anything that keeps me busy. However, I never have the chance to keep myself busy because I have absolutely nothing to do all the time. Terry is always busy all day and every day. At 7o’clock in the morning, his boisterous alarm goes off and he narrowly gets himself up every day. He then washes his face, brushes his teeth, puts on his clean, formal shirts, puts on his leather watch, carries his bags and goes into the kitchen. He then pours some already brewed black coffee into his stainless steel tumbler, pours my breakfast into my bowl, and walks out of the house after saying the plain old, “Good-bye Bailey. I’ll be back a little before 10.” Then I am left all alone in this lonely, empty house for the whole day with nothing to do. So one day, I decided to play human.

         The next morning, I woke up early in the morning, at about 7o’clock, just like Teddy did. I usually roll around in bed until 10 or 11, enjoying the sunshine coming through the blue, silk curtain in Teddy’s bedroom. Just like Teddy, I narrowly got myself up and walked into the kitchen. After he had done his daily routine and left the house, I climbed up the kitchen table and poured some of Teddy’s brewed black coffee into my own bowl. I smelled the coffee before tasting it; it smelled rich, deep, and flavorful. I put my tongue into the bowl and licked the coffee about three times in a row. “Ouch!” I yelled. The coffee was too hot and too scorching for my weak tongue to take in and it burnt my tongue. “Ew… What is this taste?” I grumbled to myself. The coffee tasted bitter and unpleasant, despite how pleasant it smelled and how appealing Teddy made it seem to taste.  “How does Teddy drink this every morning in his empty stomach?” I thought. I felt sick and nauseous that whole day and I could feel my heart pound faster and faster than its normal pace. “I liked it better when I drank fresh, ice cold water that Teddy puts in my bowl every morning,” I thought. I felt uncomfortable and promised myself that I will never drink coffee again.

         The next thing I tried was cleaning the house. Every Saturday, Teddy would broom the dust hiding in all parts of our house - from the wooden floor, computer desk, kitchen counter, closet, drawers, and even the bathroom. He would collect all the dust, empty it into the trashcan, and finish up by mopping the floor with fresh smelling Clorox. After the cleaning, the whole house would look and smell rejuvenating, and Teddy seemed like he was satisfied with his arduous cleaning. I wanted to feel that same exact accomplishment and satisfaction that Teddy would always feel after the major clean-up. First, I spotted the vacuum standing in front of Teddy’s room. I grabbed it with my mouth, somehow turned on the vacuum, and started cleaning every corner of the house. “This is pretty easy,” I thought. I felt a great sense of pleasure as I was watching all the dust being absorbed speedily like a tornado into the vacuum. However, the pleasing feeling did not last long. “This is going to take forever,” I thought. When Teddy vacuumed the house, it seemed like he finished it in about 15 minutes. As for me, 15 minutes passed and I was not even halfway done. Thirty minutes into cleaning, I grew tired and my legs were losing strength. At last my step got twisted and I slipped, letting go of the vacuum I was holding with my mouth. Right when the vacuum fell on the floor, it started absorbing my fur. “Oh no!” I thought, “Ouch! Ouch! Let go!” I tried to turn off the vacuum but it was too late. The vacuum had completely devoured a lump of fur on my right leg. “That’s it! I am completely over cleaning the house!” I unplugged the vacuum and placed it back to where it belonged.  “Cleaning the house is a lot of work,” I thought to myself, “I liked it better when I messed up the house by unrolling the toilet paper, ripping apart newspapers and magazines, and leaving biscuit crumbs on the floor.” I grew tired and rested myself on the sofa.

        I always see Teddy and a group of his friends going to the gym on weekend afternoons. Their exercising looked a lot different from my typical walk around a small park in our neighborhood. I have seen the gym while I was on a walk with Teddy as we passed by it. However, the gym looked slightly intimidating. There were a lot of muscular men and women with tight workout attires, sweats running down all over their faces, who are arduously trying to lift heavy weights. There were some on the treadmills as well, running and running nonstop which seemed like forever to me.  Since I was playing human and wanted to try out everything that the humans did, I decided to go to the gym. I got myself into the gym while someone opened the door, and curiously looked around to see which exercise I could start off with. First, I decided to go on the treadmill. I set the level to about 3.7, which seemed like a typical pace that humans seem to walk in. However, with my four tiny, short legs, it was too speedy. “Woah, whoa, woah!” I yelled. I tried to keep up with the pace, but I ended up slipping and falling on the floor. Second, I tried to do weightlifting. I grabbed the dumbbell with my teeth, but I could not do lift it. It was too hefty and did not budge at all. I clenched my teeth tremendously tight, tried to lift it, and CRACK! I heard a loud ripping noise and soon I found out two of my teeth had cracked. “This is not going too well,” I thought. After giving up, I headed back to the house ploddingly. On my way home I looked at myself reflected through the show window, looking absolutely hideous. I had lost a big lump of fur on my right leg, had broken two of my teeth, was not feeling too well again from the bitter and unpleasant coffee I had from this morning, and felt tremendously tired from waking up at 7o’clock in the morning.

        When I arrived home, Teddy was already home from work. “Bailey!” He called out loud in relief right when he saw me walking through the door. “Where have you been, and what have you done to yourself! Look at you!” Teddy looked at me pitifully and with worried look on his face. He probably thinks I am shabby and I felt embarrassed and naked in front of him.  “Being a human is hard,” I said to him, “I looked much better and more beautiful when I was a dog. I liked it better when I woke up at 10o’clock in the morning rolling around the bed until I felt like getting up. I liked it better when I did not have to drink that nauseating, bitter, black coffee in the morning and feel sick the whole day. I liked it better when I got to mess up the house and roll around the carpet while you were vacuuming the floor. I liked it better when I would just go on a simple walk with you around the park, not having to worry about running at a fast pace on a treadmill and lifting heavy weight. I liked it better when I just lied on the grass, enjoying the warm sunshine, being lazy, and not worrying about doing anything. I liked it better when I was a dog and not a human. I liked it better when I was myself, and not somebody else.” Teddy looked at me in confusion, probably wondering what in the world I was barking about. “Okay Bailey, I see that you have had a long day,” said Teddy, “Come on! Let’s go take a bath. You look hideous right now!” I excitedly followed Teddy into the bathtub, thinking thank God I do not have to go through another trouble trying to take a bath all by myself like a human.