Happy Birthday, Piper!

So my dog is going to be a decade old tomorrow.

Every birthday, he gets a birthday cake. Granted, the birthday cake is usually less a cake and more of a hamburger, but what the hell does he care?

Funny: My mom insists that I give him one of my pillows, so he has somewhere warm and Eau de Jamie to place his furry rump. Not only am I to give him one of my pillows (because I can apparently just buy myself a new pillow at Kohl's, or go without) but I am to wrap it, with a bow. Because he'll know the difference.

Okay, so Piper is very intuitive. For instance, if I say to him, "Go get your stuffed animal, and we'll play fetch," he'll shoot a very calculated, pissy look that clearly states, "Go get it yourself, what do I look like, slave labor?" If I say, "Please get off of my my knitting/clothing/pillow!" I get another look which very clearly indicates, "I'm much too comfortable. Please fuck off, and get your own knitting/clothing/pillow."

He also, according to our Christmas photo shoot, was very into presents once he figured out stuff is inside all that pointless shiny wrapping paper and stupid boxes.

But I want to know what the hell difference it makes if I wrap up my pillow and give it to him as a birthday present.

After all, isn't giving him fruit off the forbidden tree (or my pillow in this case) much like letting your sixteen-year-old smoke an entire carton of cigarettes in front of you, just to take all the mystique and coolness out of smoking?

And more to the point, it's not as if he's going to care about the pillow any more than he cares about the American economy, or the latest winner of Dancing With the Stars. In fact, I predict if I give him my pillow, he will completely ignore it and go sleep on any random surface available where the pillow is not.

In other news, the patient we all love to hate keeps syncoping, despite the Lexus-price-equivalent pacemaker we inserted. She's also a complete crank, but in a demented way, which makes the following conversations priceless:

NURSE:

Hi there, how you doin'?

PATIENT:
You know, you look like you need to go home and "get some."

Or this one (in which I was the nurse):

JAMIE:
I need to fix your telemetry leads.

PATIENT:
[proudly]
I have some really nice boobs for a ninety year old, don't I?

Finally, one of my favorites:

TECH:
I need to take your blood pressure and pulse while lying down, sitting, and standing.

PATIENT:
How 'bout while having sex?!

I've decided to stop lying to myself about my motivations for staying in nursing. It's not to help people, it's to laugh. And laugh and laugh and laugh.

And eventually, go stark raving mad, like my patients.