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| Mindy |
When Cliff's St. Louis sister and her husband come to visit, their dog Mindy comes along. She's unbelievably well-behaved, so much so that they can walk her in the city without a leash. She knows and obeys the word "heel". They usually spend their first night in the area at Pat's parents' house and the second night here. Mindy always refuses to eat while at his parents' house.
I feed my dog Purina One. I used to give her Science Diet, but when I received a sample packet of Purina One and put it in her dish with the other stuff, she carefully picked out each tiny piece of the new food, so I switched her.
I recently found out, reading a site called Best Dog Foods, that Purina One doesn't rate very high, so I was going to change to Diamond dog food. Before I could make the switch, though, it hit me that Iris had chosen Purina One and preferred it. She isn't going to live forever anyhow. She should have some voice in what she eats!
Iris isn't the only dog who loves the stuff: every dog who visits us goes straight to her bowl as soon as he arrives and eats all her food. If the owner of the visiting dog objects, I have to put Iris' food up until they leave, which means Iris goes on a diet for the duration of the visit.
Usually when Pat and Charlene visit with Mindy she refuses to eat until I trick her into eating. I won't go into the story of how I get that done, but it works, and she always eats for me. Once she starts eating, she's fine for the rest of their stay.
So when they arrived, Mindy went straight to the kitchen, to Iris' empty bowl. The back door is in the kitchen, and Pat thought maybe she wanted to go outside. He was wrong. She came back to the living room, but soon returned to the kitchen and lay down right next to Iris' empty dish.
"I think she's hungry," I said.
"She might be; she wouldn't eat at Dad's."
He hadn't brought Mindy's food in yet, so I gave her a scoop of Purina One, which she devoured.
Sunday morning I was in the kitchen preparing breakfast and Mindy joined me. Well, now that her food was in the house, I didn't think it was the best thing for me to give her more of Iris' inferior food. She is used to a high-rated dog food, not the lowly two-star-rated Purina One. I ignored her.
I went to the bathroom and was brushing my teeth when I heard a faint whining. I turned to see Mindy at my heels. She kept up the quiet crying, looking me straight in the eye.
"This dog is in here CRYING for some of Iris' food," I told them. "I don't care how much of it she eats, but it's up to you guys if I should feed her some."
They gave me permission. I fed her, and she ate every single bite.
And of course I have set a pattern: She is going to beg for that food every time she visits, because she has me wrapped around her little toenail. It's like when kids go to Grandma's house.
We switched our car insurance to Geico a couple of years ago. We haven't had any accidents to turn in, so I don't know how good they are when you need them, but I thought we ought to be able to get some cheaper insurance. Still, being the lazy person I am, I put off looking around for a better buy. Then yesterday I received an email from Swagbucks.
That's all it took to get me interested: This was something I had been putting off for a year, and I could get free Swagbucks in the process! I filled out an online form, submitted it, and my phone started ringing. The first call I got was from some lady who put me on hold while we waited for an agent. I got tired of waiting and told her I wasn't going to sit there all day on hold, so she said she would have him call me later. As soon as I hung up the phone rang again, and this was an agent with Progressive. Long story short, we are now paying $52 monthly instead of $76. That may get even lower, thanks to a program they call Snapshot, which can lower the bill as much as 30%, although the agent said it saves most people 10 to 20%. I don't know how they informed all those insurance agents that were sending me emails and calling, but as soon as I officially signed up for the insurance, I got no more calls or emails.
Later I went to the mailbox and found an invitation from Dish Network to become a customer. We've had Direct TV since 2010 and prefer it, but it costs so much! When you get it, your first year is very reasonable; then the monthly price doubles. You have to stay with them for two years, though. So to have the cheapest rates, you switch back and forth every two years, and with every switch you have to get used to a new remote and different ways of doing things.
Anyhow. A customer service lady worked with me and found a deal that will give me more channels than we had and save me twenty bucks a month for a year. Plus two months of movie channels (that we will hardly ever watch). We'll worry about what to do next after the year is up. Maybe they will figure out some other deal to keep me with them.
I wonder if I can think of some other way to save money.
