Red Wiener

No, no one has an STD. (By the way: I think we should reinvigorate the term "a social disease." Who's with me???)

I now have further evidence that my wiggly, giggly, bright-eyed dachshund is harboring dark secrets. Making my umpteenth caffeine run to the fridge, I came across something shiny on the floor. After leaping a foot before concluding it wasn't a spider--not that that would bother me--I figured it was a button. But when I picked it up, my blood ran cold. It was an eye.

If you're a bean bag, plush, or otherwise innocent toy within a 100-mile radius of our house and you're missing an eye, chances are we have it. In fact, had I started a plastic eye jar when Wigglepuppy's reign of terror began, I'm confident I would have six times as many eyes as Wiggles has ever had toys. But here's the creepy icing on the creepy cake: the eyes never, ever have a mate.

When Wiggles gets a toy that toy is hemorrhaging poly-puff filling within a day. Two days if she wants it to suffer. She chews and digs and plucks, ignoring any squeaks for help. Then she spits one eye out for me to find/step on/get freaked out by and keeps the other in some dastardly dachshund lair. Maybe she's worried her own eyes will fail her and she'll need a spare. Maybe she's been sneaking my Thomas Harris paperbacks and fancies herself the Red Dragon. Or maybe, just maybe, she doesn't know what to do with second eyes...yet. And that gives me the heebiest-of-jeebies of all.

Just to be safe, I sleep in goggles. Maybe you should, too.