You Are Mine Mother

Hello, dear reader. It’s me, Winston, and I’m afraid this week I come to you slighted and heartbroken.

You see, I love my mom. So much. And because I love her so much, I have one simple request: to be near her. Always. Every second of every day for the rest of our lives.

Is that so much to ask?

According to mom, apparently, yes.

It started, as these things often do, in the bathroom. A dog’s got needs, and one of those needs is knowing exactly what his human is doing at all times, including during her most private of moments. So naturally, I planted myself directly on her feet while she brushed her teeth. This, I thought, was a perfectly reasonable distance. Practically respectful, even. It’s not like I was licking the inside of her mouth. But mom looked down at me with this exasperated little sigh and said, “Winston, personal space.” Personal space? Never heard of her.

Then came the incident at her desk. She was typing away at her computer, probably doing something very important like emailing people or whatever it is she does all day, and I simply wanted to let her know I was there for moral support. So I hopped up and sat directly on her keyboard. Not next to it. On it. My contribution to her work that day was approximately four hundred lowercase Ls and a very confused email draft. She was not amused. I don’t understand why.

That was the story of my whole week, dear reader. Every room she walked into, I was there. Every chair she sat in, I found a way to wedge myself onto it, half on the cushion and half on her lap, because full commitment matters. And every single time, I got the same response. “Winston, you’re hovering.” “Winston, I need some space.” “Winston, I can’t feel my legs.”

I’ll be honest, this all feels deeply unfair. Deeply, deeply unfair. Here I am, offering my mom the greatest gift a dog can give, unwavering physical devotion, and she’s acting like I’ve committed some sort of crime. As if wanting to be within a two-inch radius of the person you love most in the world is somehow excessive. In my professional opinion, it’s not that I’m too close. It’s that she doesn’t understand what real closeness even looks like. She thinks two inches away counts as clingy. Laughable.

So I decided to show her.

One night, while she was fast asleep and presumably dreaming about having more personal space, which, rude, I very quietly climbed up the bed, positioned myself with the precision of a dog on a mission, and sat down directly on top of her face.

Not beside her face. Not near her face. On it.

She woke up gasping, flailing her arms like she’d just surfaced from the deep end of a pool, and yelled something I won’t repeat in a family blog. I looked down at her knowingly. That, mom, is what too close actually looks like. What I’d been doing all week, the feet, the keyboard, the lap, that was practically long-distance by comparison.

Did she see it that way? Not exactly. There was a lot of talk about boundaries and personal bubbles and something about needing to breathe, which, frankly, felt like an overreaction. But I stand by my methods. Sometimes you have to sit on a face to make a point.

Until next week, dear reader, I’ll be right here. Probably somewhere within one inch of my mom, wherever she is, whether she likes it or not.

Paws and love,

Winston 🐾