Ben Stein's Diary: Love at First Bite
Stein, Benjamin J.
by Benjamin J. Stein Love at First Bite Wednesday L et me tell you about a truly terrible day. It actually begins about two and a half years ago. I had just finished doing my second season of...
...56 February 2000 _9 The American Spectator...
...In a flat, desperate voice, my wife said, "I have some terrible news...
...Doctor Sislen...
...When we moved to our new house that we cannot afford, "The Crushing Mortgage" as I call it, Puppy-Wuppy showed us she could jump over the wall around the swimming pool...
...My sister hardly ever drives...
...Everything good on this earth is thanks to the men and women who bore the battle and the peace against the totalitarians...
...He never sent a bill...
...looked tired...
...Yes, far larger than what I was expecting, but she was regal indeed with a big brown head and lovely conformation...
...Then he'll tell me about going to the opera with B. and how beautiful she looked...
...Man's life is a triumph and not a catastrophe because of the heroism and sacrifice of every one of them from St...
...Who would have ever abandoned such a gorgeous dog...
...It is processed with distilled water and no preservatives for the specific use of eye washing...
...For the first time since Puppy-Wuppy died, I slept through the night...
...She was boundlessly loving, attacking anyone who came into the house with kisses and love bites...
...The Internet has never paid off so valuably in my life as it did when we needed a new dog...
...I never saw her run into any walls...
...I think I felt as bad then as I have ever felt...
...The airplane flight back was similarly quiet, in fact eerily silent...
...Anyway, the side has almost no force, so how can she have killed herself...
...But I never could stay mad at that little furry ball, even when she approached me with distinctly bad cat-food smell on her lips...
...and then attacked Martha and then came back and climbed all over me...
...You're telling me the dog essentially committed suicide by ramming the side of the car with her head...
...I kept walking back and forth in the tiny room thinking that some terrible thing was about to happen...
...It's worth anything to keep her alive...
...Lying on the cold stone, smashed so hard that her jaw is clenched down in unopenable rigor mortis on her tongue, which is still as pink and sweet as when she used to kiss me every few minutes just to make sure I knew she was still there...
...That was before the hospital mysteriously thought his X-ray was that of a teenage track star and stopped giving him antibiotics and before they inexplicably took him off dialysis, greatly lowering his chances...
...One drop inside each eye at bedtime will draw toxic accumulations outside of the eyes...
...This was at about 5 p.m...
...Heaven help us if we're in real trouble...
...My driver was waiting for me, and I had a slice of pizza and then headed home...
...Twice she ran right in front of oncoming cars...
...It's not recognizing Rhett or Scarier as proper names...
...Then he told me my father would find a woman to love, and that made me so happy I can still recall my glee walking along a sandy path with him with the pines and the Chesapeake Bay in the distance...
...She is a saint in our world, in this goaround as in many others before...
...The dog was right in front of her...
...No, I forgot," Alex said...
...She came with me in my car and slept in the back window ledge while I shopped or ate, In fact, many a time I would come out to the car in terror that she was gone, only to find that she was in a little puppy ball in the back window...
...Monday ~ dream about my father constantly...
...But she was told by enough people, and she (as it happened) left PuppyWuppy alone for over an hour with no one home, no one to watch her, and Puppy-Wuppy jumped the wall, wandered around the neighborhood for an hour, got put back in by the contractor, escaped again, and then saw a dog across the street, ran for her just as an accursed young woman in a Range Rover was traversing a residential, 25 mph block at 60, and struck and killed Puppy-Wuppy instantly...
...Only once or twice did she make any kind of mess inside the hallowed halls of KTLA, where we tape the show...
...She was running so fast she killed herself...
...The American Spectator _9 February 2o o o 55 the ones I deal with in L.A...
...E.V., Nebraska "Cataracts gone after 3 months...
...I mean, the dog had eyes...
...She slept with me in my dressing room on my little tiny bed...
...Is she in the hospital...
...Love at first bite...
...Back in my hotel room in Pa]o Alto, I could not sleep through the night...
...She's a puppy," said Martha, "and she's extremely lively, but she's also very sweet...
...At that point my wife came into the room, listened for a while, and said, "Puppy-Wuppy didn't leave a note...
...My wife said, "No puppies...
...I did a tiny part in a movie here a few years ago and fell in love with it...
...I was so relieved I cried...
...Without these brave men and women and their families, man would have no soul to devote to God...
...Meanwhile, I had put out the alert to Martha Wyss of Friends of Animals to keep her eyes open for a German shorthair rescue...
...My son has a very short walk to school...
...She could see ira car was right in her path...
...Today, it's jammed, but with friendly faces, including a gaffer I worked with on "The Wonder Years...
...That dog was what I looked forward to holding when my father died...
...Dogs are amazing...
...When Pop entered the hospital for the last time, Dr...
...Sislen had us to his wonderful bayfront house for a spectacular Mrs...
...Anyway, we got into the mighty white Caddy STS and headed south this morning to get our new animal companion...
...We sat in a big conference room and pleaded our case...
...No, the dog was to her side and never crossed in front of her," said Officer B. "No, the dog was struck on her side by the Land Rover...
...At the beginning of September, I had five creatures who were my closest friends: my wife, my son, my father, my PuppyWuppy, and my sister...
...She's my lovely red-headed, Internet stock-playing, profit-making assistant and she loved Puppy-Wuppy with a white-hot love...
...Tonight, without so much as a word, Brigitte got up on my bed, walked around in a circle, and then fell asleep in a heap right on my side...
...My father is already in heaven...
...She kept me up all night with her kisses except every few hours she would simply collapse like a human baby and fall fast asleep--on my chest...
...Never...
...He came every minute he could...
...But what a chill was in that room...
...She was so full of life...
...Sunday An amazing and discouraging interchange with the Beverly Hills Police Department about Puppy-Wuppy...
...All night long she attacked me with kisses and love bites and every time I fell asleep I would awaken to a sharp puppyteeth bite on my nose or my neck or my hands...
...Her injuries were all on her side...
...But she is also a lot easier to be with, is not such a terror on the highway, and she needs love desperately...
...Sislen was always there...
...Date _ _ Signature We also accept Money Orders and Checks...
...Of course, as examplars I think of my father-in-law, brave Col...
...My son had made a plate of brownies to cheer me up...
...I asked...
...Sislen wrote in an emphatic hand...
...The pound was in a desolate spot across from a trailer park...
...Never forget those who failed to keep my Puppy-Wuppy alive...
...Lo to the Pentagon and from Thierry-Chateau to the 38th Parallel and to Pleiku, standing up to evil in the form of Nazism and Japanese racial imperialism and cruelty and the unspeakable horror of Communism...
...The puppy ran up to me, gave me a love bite on my big nose, and licked me, and jumped in my lap, BENJAMIN J. STEIN is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Hollywood and Malibu...
...She did scare me a lot some days when she ran away and roamed the studio lot before she was caught...
...my father asks...
...They say it'll be FDR, and he's a good choice...
...They invited me, and now they're acting like I'm something that they can't quite scrape off their shoe...
...I have another suggestion...
...She helped me and my wife carry P-W's body in to be stuffed (yes) and then she called and then The Internet has never paid off so valuably in my life as it did when we needed a new dog...
...In fact, I think the official language of the whole world should be made English in honor of Churchill...
...Box 1120 Blue Springs, MO 64013-1120 Name Address City State PLEASE SEND SANTA LUCIA EYE DROPS (.5 oz Bottle approximately two months supply) $59.95 plus shipping - MO Residents, include $3.96 sales tax per bottle...
...Usually, I am having an imaginary talk with him as I fall asleep in my immense bedroom with its gaily twinkling lights for Christmas, holding my huge dog, Brigitte, and I am giving him a progress report on my life since he went to be with Morn...
...A few minutes later I dashed back to find her sitting in front of the door like a good girt...
...Yes, I will always miss Lucy...
...But the woman who hit her was speeding," I said...
...She was to be my companion until I got old...
...But the architecture I thought about that wall by the pool and how it's too low...
...Saturday L et us now praise a saint in my life by the name of Tina Hensley...
...Your Puppy has been run over...
...Then he explained to Pop that he had a fighting chance...
...If I put her under the covers, I got puppy bites on my feet...
...Shipping $5.95 for 1-6 bottles and $9.95 for 7-10 bottles...
...We drove to the airport and a silent sorrow filled the ancient, battered car...
...But there are millions more...
...When she went on walks, she pulled mercilessly no matter how many times I tried to make her heel...
...My father trusted Maurie Sislen totally, beyond any other doctor's word...
...I asked...
...54 Fe b r u ary 2 o o o _9 The American Spectator "No, because she didn't see the dog," said the Officer...
...drove down to Huntington Beach to see the dog in person and bring back Polaroids...
...A full-sized dog with big nippies, suggesting she had once had a litter...
...The millennium we greet is filled with promise because of them...
...When I was getting offthe freeway, I called Alex to ask if I should bring something home from the grocery for dinner...
...For Credit Card Orders Call Toll Free: 87%238-8481 MC V i s a Credit Card No...
...Two, in fact...
...I felt as if I were about to scream, as ifI were about to feel my molecules pulled apart into eternally lonely cold atoms...
...He came on weekends...
...He took their blood, measured their blood pressure, adjusted and readjusted their many medicines...
...Plus there were other witnesses...
...I asked...
...She was so active and lively that a fantasy name like Puppy-Wuppy just went with her perfectly...
...But then who would have let Lucy get run over...
...The only other times I have felt like that were the evening my dear friend Martha Dauman died, the morning of the day my mother died, and of course the morning I arrived at Washington Hospital Center the day my father died...
...I am really worried about the dog and the pool," I said...
...A glorious neighbor had seen it, had carried the body onto the sidewalk, covered her with a towel and three roses from her own wedding anniversary bouquet, and then the babysitter had put the dog on the flagstone next to the pool in the moonlight...
...I love the campus of UC Santa Cruz more than any other spot on earth (except where my wifie and son are...
...Sometimes Americans wonder what they're missing when they have an HMO with a new doctor every day, or doctors who schedule them for twelve minutes, tops...
...I had met the powers or some of them two weeks before and they were red-hot on the project...
...Too much trouble...
...What happened...
...The standing order for everyone in our household was simple, and I gave it to everyone just yesterday...
...We had a fine meal at the place on the end of the pier and then headed off to the pound, again as jittery as if we were heading to our first date, as jittery as when I first met Puppy-Wuppy...
...I called the BHPD to find out who the woman in the Land Rover was in the thought of maybe getting her to lose her license for a time for speeding...
...But none of this would have been possible without Tina's devotion and energy...
...Alex and I were nervous, as if we were heading for a blind date...
...And I trust her...
...PNP (Physicians Natural Products) P.O...
...And in her own way, she's lovable...
...We decided to call her Lucy, but for some reason, I began to call her Puppy-Wuppy right away...
...Hunger and traffic made us stop in a lovely small town south of L.A...
...president ever has except for Reagan (a heroic man if ever there was one) and Nixon (another great choice for defeating Russia by diplomacy...
...She and I were inseparable almost from day one...
...Sislen, a jolly smart fellow, was my father and mother's doctor for about thirty years...
...Glory, glory, gloryand endless thanks--to those who gave life to man's hopes and joys, the members of the armed forces of the United States of America...
...That's what they're missing...
...It was very much the same empty, haunted feeling I had the night before my father entered immortality...
...They trust so readily...
...I can still recall my son's babysitter asking me time after time, "Do you really want to pay me seventeen dollars an hour to watch that dog...
...The conversation wound down from there but it left me feeling sick...
...The policemen who write in to me at TAS always seem unusually sensible...
...Sislen came to see him every day...
...The trip was whacked from the first moment...
...In fact, I think Mao's expression about the Long Tongued Running Dogs of Capitalism must have been made about her...
...Next thing we knew, an immensely strong, tall German shorthair appeared from the bowels of the kennel, leapt up on me, pulled me out the door by the leash, and soon we were en route back to our home with Brigitte Bar-Dog, our new girl, sleeping in the back seat...
...We also found all of the animal shelters in the greater Los Angeles area...
...It can be used when there are cataracts, glaucoma, pterygium or irritations...
...WRONG...
...Some nights, after I cannot get back to sleep, I think about Maurice Sislen, M.D., a true-life medical hero...
...But maybe an even better Man of the Century would be The American Fighting Man and Woman, 1941 to 1999 . He beat the Nazis at Salerno and Monte Cassino, fought it out toe to toe in Normandy and in Belgium and Luxembourg, fought and died offVella Lavella and Luzon and Iwo Jima and Okinawa and then fought more in Korea, at Pusan and Cho-Sin, and then fought in Khe Sanh and Da Nang and the Ia Drang Valley...
...Then I am asleep and he's there, sitting in his brown leather chair under his light, watching the Redskins or the Bulls or Pete Sampras...
...She was such a ham and such a love dog that I put her in as co-host of my Comedy Central talk show, "Turn Ben Stein On...
...I'll call him Officer B. First, Officer B. said that it was largely our fault that the dog died because she was out loose and I heartily agreed...
...80% markedly improved: _9 Macular Degeneration _9 Retinitis Pigmentosa _9 Conjunctivitis _9 Glaucoma (5 different types) _9 Allergic conditions of the eye _9 Xerostomia (Dry Eye) _9 Laser Burns _9 Cataracts (including patients w/implanted lenses "Macular degeneration improved - glaucoma gone after 3 months...
...It couldn't have been suicide...
...Send to Address listed above...
...I am ashamed, but I forgot...
...I think this is the worst night of my life...
...As an individual, Churchill...
...It's a feeling as if a soul from far, far away is pulling me toward the soul and toward eternity...
...But still he is a great, great man, no doubt of that...
...I hit the Panic Button hard...
...What's the point...
...It was as if someone had pumped out all of the joy of life...
...I want you to make sure everyone gets told again not to let the dog out there without her being watched every second...
...I passed that on to Officer B., who did not like it at all...
...The dog was beautiful, although far, far bigger than Lucy...
...He kept us in the Great Depression for about five years longer than necessary, refused to let Jewish refugees from Germany save their lives by landing in the U.S., would not order the dispersion of the Pacific Fleet to avoid Pearl Harbor, and would not bomb the concentration camp railways to save the lives of the condemned of Auschwitz...
...We had bid her adieu at a vet in Studio City, cried a lot, and then gone on with our lives, so to speak...
...in a state of some dismay...
...He talked to me about my father's guarded cardiac prospects...
...He was reassuring when he could be, and sobering when he had to be...
...But I am happy for the warm, bulky presence of my Brigitte Bar-Dog...
...I told our maid and my son's babysitter that they must never leave Puppy-Wuppy out by the pool without watching her...
...When I got back into the car after anything, she would reach out her paw and pull my face over to her so she could kiss me with her very long puppy tongue...
...My answer was always, "That dog is life and death to me...
...Then, early the day after P-W's murder, Tina sat at the phone and called every single number until she found a shelter that had just taken in a GSP female the day before...
...I kept waking with a sinking feeling that something was wrong...
...My wifie said she was too busy to deal with a new dog, and I was too busy doing my show, so we were a one-dog family for a few months...
...I'll feel so happy that he's sharing his life with me, and then I'll wake up...
...When my mother died, Dr...
...The driver of course is gonna say that," I said...
...After many tries, I reached a man who was on duty that night and responded to the event...
...Obviously, my Dad and Morn are far more important...
...Churchill, my old Ma used to say, was the greatest man who ever lived, and I think she was right...
...I figure he came to see Pop not fewer than thirty times in the hospital...
...I hope you're kidding," I said...
...On Friday, yesterday, the shelter said that time had passed sufficient for us to claim the dog, and now here we are en route to the South Bay to pick up our new hound...
...She jumped up on the table, sometimes with all four feet, while I ate...
...She obviously did not like being lost, and now she won't be ever again if all's well...
...My wife was filled with apologies...
...So much pain to no purpose...
...But it was humming with activity as volunteers walked dogs and potential owners paraded back and forth with dogs and kitties...
...Near the beginning of that season, my beloved angel dog, Ginger, a large German shorthaired pointer, had died of old age...
...How can that be...
...The Officer said, "No, the dog killed herself by running into the side of the girl's car...
...By the way, what kind of Philistines made the spell check for this Corel...
...I still have my father's written colloquy with Maurie Sislen where Maurie tries to cheer him up in his despair...
...That dog is more to me than any human outside of my immediate family and my sister...
...Sislen-cooked dinner...
...Then she would lie across the seat and the center console and sleep with her Puppy head on my lap...
...Therefore, it is considered a purifier...
...I sat in a ratty arm chair in the beatup waiting room, and out came Martha, preceded by a bounding little gray and white bundle of love...
...Yesterday, I flew up to San Francisco to have a meeting with a group of high-powered venture capitalists about the proposed Ben Stein University on-line portal for college-age kids...
...We left the meeting at about 4 p.m...
...When the end came, Dr...
...My wife works very close to her home (which is also my home...
...Then he'll say, "Can I tell you about my life...
...The puppy is never under any circumstance to be left alone unless she's inside the car with the windows up except for two inches...
...R.G., Florida YES...
...When I pray in English instead of Hebrew, I often remind myself that if I am praying in the same language as Winston Spencer Churchill, I am on Holy Ground...
...Yes," said Officer B. "But a small dog like that couldn't possibly pick up enough momentum to kill herself running into the side of a car...
...There is much more to it than stock quotes and porn pictures...
...But where is my Puppy, my best friend who was so filled with life and love...
...Pay to order of PNR...
...No...
...No, and I resent the fact that you don't think I know what I'm talking about," answered Officer B. "I work with dogs all day and I love them...
...But SANTA LUCIA EYE DROPS The amazing Santa Lucia Eye preparation is made of two types of plants...
...It's two in the morning, and I'm all alone except for the lights and the dog and Alex snoring like a machine gun at the end of the hall...
...He came when he was supposed to be on vacation...
...He stood up to the Hitlerite beast, led the free world in its darkest hour, rallied the English-speaking peoples to their greatest hour, understood Communism better than any U.S...
...Now there are some new faces here who have no clue at all about who I am, what the plan is, or why it will work...
...When it was bedtime, she would lie on her back and wag her tail to make me pick her up, Rhett and Scarlett style, and carry her off to bed and ravish her...
...without them, no pleasures, no happiness, nothing but a boot stomping a human face forever, as Orwell said...
...Days before the end of the season, she told me she had one...
...Dale Denman, and his brother, brave Bob Denman, two Silver Star-winning brothers who never ever brag once...
...But Puppy-Wuppy was so young...
...The students looked too young...
...To her credit, the babysitter had then resigned her badges of office, her beeper, her cell phone, her keys to the car, and left...
...Personal checks please allow 3 weeks for delivery...
...She ran about the set, cadged dog biscuits (and why notbshe was probably hungry), and made me pick her up and hold her in my arms...
...This product can be used safely in anyone including infants and people with illnesses and it has no contraindications to its use...
...Then I cry so much so quickly that my pillow gets soaked with tears and I have to get up and change it...
...He was suffering as a man and as a friend, not only as a great doctor...
...But what could it be...
...Every few hours, Tina called to see if the dog had been claimed...
...For another, even when we got to Santa Cruz, it did not seem right...
...For one thing, the car that my Stanford boys had me in to tour Santa Cruz the day before the meeting was a deathtrap, with wheels wildly out of alignment, extremely inadequate brakes, and the feel of a car that will be on the nightly news because it carried a TV star and three Stanford students to their graves...
...The one dog was Susie, a delightful half-Dalmatian, half-whippet with a sweet disposition...
...It's been six weeks as this is sent to TAS, and there's still been no note...
...bythe name of Seal Beach...
...Now two of them are gone and my sister is far, far away...
...To her shame, she left no note of apology or sorrow for what her negligence had cost me--my best friend...
...She would burst out the door when I went out for the newspaper, run away while I was watering the plants, generally was a maniac escape artist-but she 52 February 2000 " The American Spectator did not like being away and always came back...
...I went with my Stanford boys to the headquarters of the venture capitalists...
...I feel as ifI am a seller of vacuum cleaners going door to door in a bad neighborhood...
...He's nodding as I talk to him, and every so often he'll shake his head in amazement at some cute thing Tommy did or some extravagant thing I did...
...He did cut a dashing figure and spoke eloquently in defense of freedom, and was much loved by Churchill...
...She spent the night in bed with me and me alone...
...My connection with the place is fading...
...The dog was a born performer...
...The day after Puppy-Wuppy was murdered, she and I set to work with the lntemet to find German shorthaired pointer rescue sites...
...She slept pressed up against me in bed...
...How did it happen...
...Always hurt for my Puppy-Wuppy...
...Thursday H ideous day...
...I always respect the police," I said, "but your idea that the dog committed suicide is ridiculous...
...Tragically, she had no fear of cars at all...
...How come every contact I have with the L.A...
...She had a lot of other sloppy, and sometimes dirty, habits that made me yell at her and even sometimes spank her...
...She also chased the kitties but never tried to eat them, got into endless growling play fights with Susie, and ran from the back of the back yard to the living room and then back again for hours...
...The best that medicine with the human touch can offer...
...Once I was so upset about my show that I let Puppy-Wuppy wander around near the car when I loaded it, then completely forgot to take Puppy-Wuppy with me when I left...
...She was a grown-up dog, in fact...
...But I went over to look at the puppy anyway, my heart filled with the kind of trepidation I used to feel upon going on a blind date...
...About three days later after my last show, I went with Alex to pick up the dog...
...Several neighbors had seen the "accident" and reported to us thata young woman in a Land Rover or maybe a Range Rover had been speeding and had hit Puppy-Wuppy as the dog rushed across the street to play with another dog...
...When I got home Puppy-Wuppy was lying under a towel by the pool in a full The American Spectator _9 Fe b r uary 2 o o o 53 moon (always a full moon when evil strikes) with three roses on top of her...
...area police is upsetting, marked by dishonesty and arrogance by the police and extremely fundamental disregard of basic common sense...
...Luckily the cars were going slowly enough to stop, but it was a close-ran thing...
...The campus was too dark...
...The babysitter left her out in the pool for an hour, even though Tommy told her not to, and the maid told her not to, and even though you've told her not to...
...I thought about that wall by the pool and how it's too low...
...In fact, she liked to escape as often as she could at home too...
...When my mother got sick and sad, Dr...
...This dog does not kiss, does not throw herself at me the way PuppyWuppy did...
...Wednesday H eY, I notice that there are lots of nominations for man of the century...
...She's dead," my wife said...
...That day the main street, leading into a long pier with a restaurant at the end, was empty of pedestrians and cars but loaded with adorable shops...
...I drive this block every day and if you go the lawful speed, you can easily stop for a dog...
...It can be used as part of the nutritional management of all types of eye conditions...
...Did you tell her not to...
...But if she committed suicide, wouldn't that be a first...
...She does not want to leave our side for a moment (mine and Alex's...
...In other words, we were in love...
...But the driver of the car said that it happened that way," the Officer said...
...She had good vision...
...The first call I made when I woke up was to my wife...
...I feel unbearably sad...
...We had also gotten a lovely duo of cats, Peabo, a squashed head trauma kitty saved by my wife, and Artemis, a male (even with that name) black cat saved by my pal Gartho...
...Sislen was there, in shock, loss, and deep pain...
...He and his family lived lonely, impoverished lives in Germany and in Guam and Greenland and even now spend solitary holidays in Bosnia and Haiti...
...When guests came over, she would jump into their laps and make them play with her...
...I had just finished doing my second season of "Win Ben Stein's Money...
...As if the noise of living had been turned off...
Vol. 33 • February 2000 • No. 1
