No, it Isn't Snow

It's dog hair.

Yes, it's that time of year once more: Shedding season.

"What's this?" you say? "A dog, shedding in the fall? But spring is the time of year for dogs to molt!"

To you doubters, I say "Pooh"--right after I spit out a mouthful of dog hair.

Every October my fat, stupid, lazy, coffee table of a dog drops her entire coat. Yes, her entire coat. Like any fashionista, she is unsatisfied with merely expanding her current wardrobe--twice a year, she requires a completely new one.

This means for about three weeks, the rest of us are forced to wade through drifts of soft, ivory fluff that aspire to the ceiling. Woe betide the child who climbs sticky-fingered onto the sofa. We hostages to the hair wear dark colors at our own peril. Why, just this morning, I couldn't get the F on my keyboard to function. The problem? A matt of dog hair stuck under the key.

There's dog hair in the butter dish, dog hair in my freezer, dog hair sprouting from the window screens, dog hair stuck to my mascara wand. And yet there is still, defying all laws of physics and common sense, dog hair on the dog. I can brush her for hours, harvesting bales of the stuff, and three and a half minutes later she'll wander by in a cloud of freshly molted fur, depositing her dubious bounty on every piece of furniture within fifty feet.

I have fought this biannual war of attrition with a multitude of inadequate weapons: brooms, dog-combs and vacuum cleaners, lint-rollers and sticky tape. I have even considered applying a generous coat of spar varnish to the dog so the whole mass comes off in one, solid shell. But this year, I simply no longer have the energy to fight. I concede defeat. The hair wins.

I'm not even going to vacuum until the saturation bombardment of dog-follicles ceases. The battle is unwinnable, so why even try?

If any of you all are looking for me, I'll be under the dog hair until the second week of November.