Did I Ever Tell You The Story of Nibbies And Her Puppies?

When I start these weekly posts, I think of Zee and her advice that I should maybe tell a story or at least weave elements of story into these writings. 

My mother, and especially my grandmother, were big storytellers. 

My grandmother would launch into one by saying, “Did I ever tell you the story about the time your Uncle Jackie fell into the lake….” Or: “Did I ever tell you the story of Nibbies and her puppies?” 

Every time she told these stories (and she told the same ones repeatedly), they’d change. I started to think of my grandmother’s stories as big, albeit funny, lies.

I found them funny unless I was in them or had some memory of the incident myself. I do remember the story of Nibbies’ puppies, but I want to tell you MY version.

Nibbies was my grandmother’s Cocker Spaniel. Nibbies was a one-person dog, and my grandmother was her one-person. 

Nibbies hated kids. I was a pre-schooler in the Nibbies era, but I never messed with Nibbies because if I did, she’d bite me.

I remember being frustrated with this because she was cute and curly and looked really, really soft. I wanted so much to pet her, but if I approached her, she’d growl, show her teeth, and snap.

My grandmother never scolded her for growling at me, though. Instead, she scolded me and told me to leave Nibbies alone.

 So I didn’t mess with Nibbies, even though I wanted to. I wanted to befriend her—cuddle with her, make her my special dog friend, pet her, and play with her like I played with my stuffed animals.

Nibbies gave birth to a litter of puppies. I don’t know how that happened, but Nibbies took her puppies under the couch to nurse them after they were born. If I even lifted the skirt of the couch to peek at her, she’d issue a low, forbidding growl.

As it turned out, the space under the couch was too small for both her and the puppies and Nibbies ended up smothering them all.  

My grandmother somehow got them out of there and disposed of them, but for days afterward, Nibbies roamed the house whimpering, looking all over for her puppies. 

But then suddenly, Nibbies stopped looking for them and settled in under the couch again.

Around that time, I discovered that all my favorite stuffed animals were missing: my little bear, my raccoon, and my kitten. I complained to my mother, and my mother asked my grandmother if she had seen them, but she hadn’t seen them either. 

And then, having an idea, my grandmother took a flashlight and shone it under the couch. Nibbies had taken my animals under there with her and was pretending to nurse them.

I remember being mad at Nibbies for taking my animals, and I told my grandmother she should take them away from her because they were MINE, not hers. 

My grandmother tried to explain to me that Nibbies missed her babies and needed my animals so she wouldn’t be so sad.

A few years later, my mother and my grandmother had a big fight, and my grandmother moved to California. I was distraught because I loved my grandmother more than I loved my mother.  

In the weeks leading up to her departure, my grandmother would try to console me about her impending departure. She told me to save my pennies and come out to California, and we would go to Disneyland.

At the time, I had a glass, pig-shaped coin bank. I wondered how many pennies it would take to have enough to go to California to be with my grandmother. 

After she left, I took my little bear, my raccoon, and my kitten to bed with me. I pretended they were my puppies. I curled them into my belly and pretended to nurse them, like Nibbies, so I wouldn’t feel so sad.

When everyone was much older, and we’d find ourselves sitting around somebody’s kitchen table, my mother and grandmother smoking cigarettes, me drinking coffee, my grandmother would  say, “Did I ever tell you the story of Nibbies and her puppies?” 

I’d excuse myself then and go to the bathroom because I knew my grandmother’s story about Nibbies’ puppies. It always ended with her discovering that Nibbies had taken my stuffed animals and used them as surrogate puppies.

She never told the part about how I ached for her when she left and how I used those same stuffed animals for years to console myself. 

She also forgot the part about how I never saved enough pennies to make it to California, how I never saw her again until she was old and I was a grown woman, and how I have never, to this day, seen Disneyland.