This is Miss Boogie.
Miss Boogie lives with her people in a metal house in Clintonville. It suits her. She was found in a metal dumpster on the edge of German Village. Since she was a foundling, her family tree was very difficult to trace. She is small, six pounds, with long spindly legs. She is ten inches high. Her ears are floppy but not long, and her fur, well her kinkily soft fur sticks out all over like an un-waxed moustache.
Miss Boogie has great distain for those who think she is a poodle mix. Miss Boogie is not at all a poodle. She is not at all a terrier. After much research, Miss Boogie, determined that she was an affenpinscher. She saw one on a dog chart in the veterinarian’s office and looked it up in the dictionary. “(af-en-pin-scher) n. Ger. Any of a breed of small, black dog with moustache like tufts.” Since she could not prove the noun, Miss Boogie decided she was the adjective, “of or having the qualities of affenpinscher.” She was found in German Village, after all.
Most people have never seen an affenpinscher. Hardly anyone knows what an affenpinscher is. Even the vet didn’t know her breed and mistakenly wrote “poodle-mix” on her card. She is not fond of the vet.
Miss Boogie is a source of much amusement to people on the street who sometimes point and laugh. “What is that, Harriet, a rat?” “No, Howard! Rats don’t wear collars.” Miss Boogie just bounces right by. “Our rat does,” chirp her people. “She’s quite tame. Would you like to hear her sing?” “Sing Boogie.” And she sings in her purest descant soprano.
Miss Boogie’s people don’t much care what her breeding is. They love her character. It isn’t simply her moustache like tufts, or her spindly legs, or even the small, pink tongue that curls up over her nose at the mention of chocolate. It’s her joie de vivre. It’s the quality of “boogie” which brought about her name. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Everything about Miss Boogie is unusual. Her people live in a metal house, Lustron. They say it’s made of melted down airplanes and tanks from World War II baked with enamel. Very durable. Fireproof. All the pictures are hung with magnets, like on a refrigerator door. Miss Boogie’s people always laugh when telephone solicitors try to sell them aluminum siding. “Ha, ha, ha, Miss Boogie, what do you think of that! They want us to put cheap aluminum over our indestructible steel.” Imagine what Miss Boogie’s people say about vinyl siding.
Lustron suits Miss Boogie. She was found, after all in a steel dumpster. More than that, hardly anyone has heard of Lustron. Hardly anyone has heard of an affenpinscher. Hardly any affenpinschers live in a Lustron house with two moms. Miss Boogie is pleased with her situation.
