All I really need to know about lub I learned from Lulu

So yesterday was Valentines Day, and we all know what that means. It means my daughter has been pulling double and triple shifts at the flower shop.

On Friday she spent four hours stripping all the thorns from the roses, which is false advertising if you ask me. Roses have thorns, peoples! Deal with it!

Why should a rose, if it smells the same by any other name, have to pretend it doesn't have thorns?

Go figure, my daughter really digs the hustle and bustle of the flower shop during the Valentines rush. She calls it "exciting" and comes home every day with entertaining stories about the type of people who buy de-thorned roses. I would tell them, but go figure again, I can't tell them half as funny as she does.

But I can give you the moral to her stories. And, I can draw you a metaphor:

People want harmless roses. Wrapped in sparkly ribbon. And they want it discounted.

You get me?

They don't want to pay full price for their harmless, sparkly roses.

That ain't reality though, is it? If you want to roll the dice (with a rose bush), you have to pay the price.

I learned all this from Lulu.

Remember when I got Lulu last May? And she was so cute and tiny and perfect.

PERFECT, PERFECT, PERFECT!

And I lubbed her so so so much that I thought I might explode?

And then she developed an eating disorder.

She wouldn't eat dog food, but she would eat socks.

Remember that? And then she would up-chuck those socks. Once she up-chucked six socks in a single day.

And then she went through a diva phase, where she would only eat dog food out of the palm of my hand.

And then she developed an identity crisis and copped an attitude.

And then she found religion, and started hiding her sock addiction by sneaking socks under the bed.

And then she chewed up my How to Train a Perfect Puppy book. Twice.

And then she started barking at people and chasing cars until my neighbors started giving me the finger behind my back. In their minds.

And THEN. She started shedding. OH GLORY, THE SHEDDING! She shed and she shed and she shed, until I started buying jumbo lint brushes by the bushel from Costco.

And then I had to buy a Dyson vacuum, (but that's a whole nother lub story).

I brushed her and I bathed her, and then I vacuumed up after her. And then I did it all again--and again--and again. Brush, brush, brush, vacuum, vacuum, vacuum.

And then I started vacuuming her. My son would hold her down while I sucked all the hair from her body.

And then we would wrap her in saran wrap.

Sounds terrible and horrible and no good and very bad, doesn't it?

And yet, I still LUB HER GUTS!

I have no idea why.

For some inexplicable reason she makes me smile.

Sometimes she's the only thing that makes me smile.

She makes me laugh too. I don't know why. Maybe it's the way she keeps me company. The way she rides shotgun in the car. And the way she reaches out with her paw while I'm driving, until I take it, and we drive off into the sunset, holding hands.

Or maybe it's the way she misses me when I'm gone. The way she runs to me when I come home, and wags her tail madly, and then drops to the floor and rolls onto her back and wriggles and wriggles and wriggles like she's having a seizure. She groans too, like she wants to tell me how terribly she's missed me.

Maybe it's the way she lubs me. No. matter. what. And she doesn't hold any of it back. No. matter. what. She nudges me and curls up at my feet and snuggles me and nuzzles me. And without fail, she always greets me at the door with a present--an offering--usually a stick or a bone, but sometimes she surprises me. Once she came tearing down the hall to bring me a hanger in her mouth.

So peeps, there's a moral here. There's a definite moral here.

Roses have thorns. But roses are bee-U-tiful!

And they are worth the price!