The Start of the Whole Mess

   So, from remembering back on this year, I think my issues with it started March 2nd. March 2nd is my dad’s birthday. This year it was a Monday.



   I remember all this because that was also the day I moved areas in my current job at the furniture store. See I worked in the dining room category as an assistant to the buyer. But the higher-ups decided to be rid of the girl working in the leather upholstery category. I was asked in February to move into her position.


   I should also mention my dad and I work in the same department, he works in bedding/youth furniture. He told me that moving categories would be a good chance to get a promotion in the long run. I accepted the transfer and March 2nd rolled around, my first day with a new team. I moved desks, back near people I worked with before (long and uninteresting story) and I was glad to try something new.


   I also work another job at a movie theatre, but on March 2nd I worked at a pizza place. I was scheduled that day to leave the first job at 4:30 and be at the next job at 5:30, something I’ve done many times. To get on with the story, my mom called me during the afternoon, saying the dog, Chi-Chi, was sick and she needed to take him to the vet. My mom has no car during the day. I called up my boyfriend and he graciously took the lot of them to the vet. My dad and I were then in a meeting for a couple hours. When I came back, my mom called again and simply said, and I’m paraphrasing, “I had to put the dog down, he’s dead.”


   “What?!”


   “Gina, he was so sick. He had heart failure. The doctor said his heart was four times larger than normal.”


   I got upset. I had no clue he was ill. Two weeks prior the vet told us he had a heart murmur. But we did not think something would develop so quickly. I was mainly upset because I wanted to go with and say goodbye and I was stuck at work. And the worst part, I would have to go to another job and deal with people for five more hours.


   By this time it was almost 4:30 anyway, but my new teammates were saying “Go home Gina.” I left and called the pizza place and asked for the evening off because I was upset. I think that’s reasonable. They told me I would have to come in until someone else came in to cover. In the end, I worked about 30 minutes there, so I wasn’t mad at them or anything. A little miffed that they just didn’t say, “Don’t even come in,” but I understood.


   So, at 6:00, I went home and found my mom and dad talking. My mom had already thrown away Chi-Chi’s food and put his bowl and bed away. It was like he wasn’t even there that morning. Needless to say I yelled at her a bit for that, but her defense was “Why shouldn’t I have? He died! That was harder for me than you!” We got over it in a little while, but that still strikes me as wrong. The three of us just sat there for a few minutes, and then I walked over and got my dad’s b-day present. I handed it to him saying, “I’m sorry the dog died on your birthday.” He was actually okay with this. He said something like, “I’ve had a lot of birthdays, and on this one the dog died, that’s okay.” That night we went to the Texas Roadhouse restaurant (steak house) and filled our faces with comfort food.


   I still miss Chi-Chi; he was cool. He was a little yapper type dog, a shih-tzu, but I liked him. I brought my mom to the humane society in hopes of getting her to tell Dad she wanted another dog, but he doesn’t want to worry about another pet during mom dealing with her medical issues. And to be honest I wasn’t ready then either.






To Chi-Chi, one cool dog.