Deciding how I should go potty was an important decision in Mama and Daddy’s life. At first, Mama wanted to use me to use a litter box inside the house. When that didn’t pan out, they decided that I should go potty outside.

However, they didn’t want to install a doggy door because Daddy was afraid that someone would crawl inside the doggy door and rob us.

Daddy remembered faintly about reading somewhere that an owner used a “bell.” Upon ringing the “bell”, the owner would let the dog go outside to potty.

Mama visualized the “bell” as a receptionist bell, a small round bell with a little button on top. Under Mama’s vision, they would put a receptionist bell under a rubber mat. When I have to go potty, I should stand on top of the rubber mat.

On the other hand, Daddy visualized the “bell” as a string with a bunch of little bells tied to the door knob. When I have to go potty, I would hit the string with my nose.

Daddy won the argument (surprisingly). In protest, Mama decided that she was not going to go shopping with Daddy to buy the little bells. At the time, Mama was quite stubborn (still is).

Daddy went to JoAnn to purchase the little bells. Daddy’s memory of this shopping trip is a little blurry. Somehow prior to driving to JoAnn, Daddy got the idea that the little bells were called jingle bells but he wasn’t sure so he asked an assistant at JoAnn for help. The assistant, a blonde, wasn’t sure if the little bells were called jingle bells either. The assistant, holding a bag of little bells, asked another assistant whether these were jingle bells.

She replied, “those are jingle bells, YOU DORK.”

I got the hang of it right away. Mama would shake the string with the little bells, open the door, and take me outside to go potty. Upon successfully completion, Mama gave me a treat.

Later, I would hit the string with my nose when I have to go potty. There was one time when I rang the bell while Mama was on the phone. Mama didn’t come to the door because I went potty just an hour ago. Mama, however, didn’t realized that I was ringing the bell for Misty, my foster golden retriever buddy, who was living with us at the time. But that is a story for another time.

Mama told her sister about the string with the little bells and she decided to try it. Couple of months later, she removed the string because her dogs kept ringing it when they wanted to go play outside.

The air conditioning in our old house wasn’t always set to go on when it reaches 87 degrees…

Daddy and Mama purchased our old house when they were really young (in their twenties). In order to make ends meet, they would cut corners on certain expenses. Air conditioning being one of those expenses.

For those that never been to Las Vegas, in the summer months, the daily temperature would routinely be above 100 degrees.

In our old house, the air conditioning is set to go on when it reaches 87 degrees. It is set precisely at 87 degrees because a fan turns on automatically when it reaches 88 degrees. Once the fan is on, Daddy and Mama didn’t know how to turn it off and the fan would be on until it gets dark, which is usually not until 8:00 pm. Daddy thinks that it must be some sort of safety feature to prevent the house from burning down. Mama didn’t care so much about safety. Instead, she thought that it was probably cheaper to have the air conditioning for a brief period of time than having the fan on for the whole day.

Of course, the upstairs bedroom is usually cooler than 87 degrees because we had a ceiling fan. But Mama had a rule where we can only turn on the ceiling fan when there are three bodies in the room (Mama, Daddy, and me).

One day, Mama was in her office and Daddy and I were in the bedroom. The ceiling fan wasn’t on since Mama wasn’t in the room. Daddy and I were taking an afternoon nap when Mama woke us up and said “quick, you guys have to get downstairs..”

Daddy thought there was an emergency. Daddy grabbed me and ran down the stairs.  When we got to the bottom, Mama told us that she messed with the thermostat settings by setting the air conditioning too high so the air conditioning did not go on at 87 degrees. Instead, the fan came on but the upstairs bedroom was over 95 degrees and she got worried since our bodies were so warm.

Ever since that day, Mama never messed with the thermostat setting. But we still couldn’t turn on the ceiling fan unless there were three bodies in the room. Sometimes when Daddy is at school, I would take a nap with Mama and get hot from napping. I would look at Mama and then at the ceiling fan but Mama would say, “sorry P-, no exceptions…”