Friday, September 10, 2010

A Dog Named Douche

Anna and I have been struggling trying to come up with a name for our new adopted puppy. (This is redundant as all puppies are adopted unless you actually gave birth to the canine yourself, but I'm saying adopted as in, we saved her from the Green Mile she was headed for at the Aruban Puppy Prison. I thought reminding her daily of this would be a good training tool. Whispering "you'd be dead without us" but it seems to have no effect on getting her to sit, stay and not pee on my pillow).  It has been especially difficult because we would like to name her something in Papiamento, the hybrid language of Aruba and the Netherland Antilles, a combination of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Arawak and African influences. In otherwords, it's a mutt language not too unlike the genetic amalgamation of the nameless puppy. And since neither of us speak Papiamento we're forced to consult locals on potential names.

One of our new Aruban friends, Dennis, was subjected to a night of quizzical torture reminiscent of the scene from Love Actually, where the British guy arrives at a Wisconsin bar and is asked by four beautiful Americans to say the names of random objects as they giggled at how typical words like "doorbell" suddenly became adorable when pronounced by BBC style. Except, unfortunately for Dennis,  Anna and I weren't four beautiful blondes about to take him back to our place for, as the British would say, "shag."

The first suggestion we receive when we Arubans is "Dushi" which means sweet. But as an American Dushi sounds like what the French do when they are a little Pepe Le Pu, douche and what douche means to Americans is not exactly what I'd call "sweet."  And while I've noticed she has a habit of licking her little dog vagina I'm hoping it's more a phase that will go away and not something that will capture her identity for the rest of her dog life. But this makes me think how interesting it would be if we were named for our habits from early development. There would be: Laughswhenpoops, Dirtydiaper, Snoteater and Fartsfromeatingpeas. One day Fartsfromeatingpeas would grow up and perhaps become a doctor and Laughwhenpoops might even be a patient. The nurse would say, "Laughswhenpoops? Yes, Dr. Fartsfromeatingpeas will see you now."

1 comment:

  1. Heaven forbid, the Dr eats peas previous to this appointment causing Laughswhenpoops to have a minor accident. :)

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