The other day I was working around my house in my yucky sweats. They are my attire of last resort. My brother had asked if I could baby sit his dog until my parents could come and pick her up. This particular brother is my very solid, always anchored, trustworthy, responsible brother. He is always the one I call when I need someone to take care of our zoo while we are out of town. I refuse to board my dogs or cat, and what the heck do you do with a turtle? So of course I said yes.

Although Josh lives in town, his dog stays with my parents on their 10-acre plot with their 4 dogs and 6 horses. The land is pretty raw and undeveloped. My parents live in a small travel trailer, with plans to build a not much larger log cabin. The horses stay in large pens that my children helped clear debris, rocks, and low growing ground cover from and then built near my parents’ home. They have two small dogs, a Shih Tzu named Sammy and a Papillion named Rusty and two very large Catahoula hounds named Doc and Festus. Bailey belonged to Josh’s friend, who moved to another state and couldn’t take her. Then Josh moved into an apartment into which 85 lb. Bailey was not allowed. The logical place for her to go was the giant plot of undeveloped land that houses my parents.

Bailey has thrived since moving to “the country.” She runs and explores and follows where her nose leads and swims in ponds and does just generally doggy type things, which includes rolling in the wonderful perfumes of feces and dead animals. In fact, she gets so much exercise since moving out there, that she has dropped 20 lbs. A few days ago, Bailey hid under the trailer and wouldn’t come out when my dad first called her. That was worrisome to him. Between the two of them, my parents managed to coax her out to find that she had been bitten by some type of animal. They were very concerned that it could be a snake bite and called my brother, rather frantic. They were already leaving for work, and they work in town, so they met Josh, and he took Bailey to the vet. Fortunately, she had not been bitten by a snake but by some other animal. The vet gave Josh some antibiotics for Bailey and sent them on their way. Josh couldn’t take her back to his apartment (she has abandonment issues that cause furniture to be destroyed and just general household mayhem when left alone in an unfamiliar place) and had to go to work, so Bailey came to visit Aunt Marcie for the day.

When she walked in my front door, however, I was not so happy. I asked Josh, “what the heck is that smell” to which he replied, “she must have rolled in something.” I dealt with it as long as I could before I dragged her in to the bathroom and scrubbed her down. Washing my dogs is not that big of a deal. The largest is a Lhasa Apso, and she is the most trouble. It takes me about 15 minutes because she has a special shampoo for her skin problems that has to remain on for 10 minutes. The other two are a Dachshund, weighing in at 7 pounds, and a dachshund mix that weighs about 10. The two together take less effort and maybe the same amount of time as the Lhasa. Washing Bailey was a completely different thing. By the time I finished, I was filthy, soaked, and emanated the lovely aroma of wet dog and whatever it was she rolled in. But Bailey was clean.

Needless to say, I was not thrilled at the prospect of smelling that way for the rest of the day. Our dirty laundry pile was much fuller than the clean laundry one. After rummaging through my drawers several times and noticing that nothing new appeared from thin air, I grumpily accepted that I would have to wear the too thin, too short, too tight sweats. I threw my wad of smelly laundry into the washer and, since I was in grungy uglies, I decided to get some house cleaning done.

It was in the midst of this cleaning frenzy, when I was sweaty and filthy, that my doorbell rang. Great. Just what I need. All four dogs raced to the door, barking frantically. I waded through the dogs, opened the door a crack and squeezed myself through, pulling it shut behind me. I was greeted by a gangly kid in a dress shirt with beautiful, neat corn rows. He was holding a small padded black folder like the one I used when I used to wait tables, and he spoke in a low voice so quiet that I could barely hear him.

“Yes? Can I help you?” It turns out he was selling a super fabulous cleaner that is very concentrated and eco friendly. You add 1 capful to 20 oz of water and you can clean anything. He pulled the spray nozzle out and dripped some of it onto his tongue to assure me that was completely nontoxic. He laid out all the attributes of the products haltingly, stumbling along shifting his weight uneasily from foot to foot. My mind immediately went to all the news specials I’ve seen where kids, barely out of high school, answer adds for jobs in “sales” and are taken far from home, stay in seedy motels, barely have anything to eat. Then I heard something about “no streaks on glass,” and before I knew it, he was spraying it all over my storm door. He wiped it with a rag and rubbed his fingers across the glass to show me that, indeed, it did not streak for, “uh…14… yeah 14 days.” And not only does it do glass and counters and laundry and other household surfaces, but it also does outdoor things too. “Let me show you,” he said as he turned and let those terribly long legs propel him down the sidewalk to my car.

I was already feeling anxious because I was sweaty and gross, and dressed in my last resort clothes. I hurried behind him, tugging self-consciously at my shirt to cover the jiggling fat of my thighs. He squatted down, sprayed the wheels of my car, and wiped away the black brake dust, revealing shiny silver wheels. I kept looking around to make sure no one I knew saw me standing out there looking so gross. He looked at me, told me it removed oil spots too, and before I could think, jumped up and went to the other side of the car. I walked around the front of the car to where he was on his hands and knees spraying the magic stuff on a nasty looking oil spot. He pulled a brush from his bag and scrubbed the oil spot away. He scrubbed my driveway. He SCRUBBED my DRIVEWAY. I looked down at him, at this rangy kid who couldn’t be very long out of high school, who was trying so hard but stumbling along, who kept having to look down at his sheet to remember what he was supposed to say, and all I could think was this is someone’s kid. This is someone’s son, someone’s grandson, someone’s brother, and he was scrubbing my driveway. I asked him where he was from. He told me, and he was far from home. I felt sad for him, for his family. He wasn’t like the sales guys I’ve worked with. He wasn’t slick and polished. In fact, he wasn’t very good at it, bumbling along. It was so weird standing in my driveway, feeling so much compassion and sadness for this kid who wasn’t even asking for it.

He left smiling, and I watched him walk down the rest of the street, knocking on doors. One didn’t answer; one slammed a door in his face. He wasn’t at any house long, and I watched until he turned the corner. I did the only thing I could: I said a prayer for him, that he would get what he needed.

Oh, and I bought a bottle of his magic cleaner.