Gross By Definition

There is a plague upon the Valdez Household -- a plague of hairs.  Short, stiff, white, canine hairs to be exact.  It turns out that labs/lab-mixes shed more generously than do huskies/husky-mixes.  Or, to be more precise, they shed in different ways: Panda drops clumps of hair from her outer coat in response to the confusing mix of winter-spring temps that have been our weather since October; Hank releases constant light clouds of his hair into the air for no apparent reason at all, other than that he can.  Gathering our elder dogs clumps is a faster, less irritating chore than the methods which must be employed to rid clothing, carpet, table tops, lap blankets, car seats and the kitchen floor of the Wonder Pup's ubiquitous and highly visible light fur.


This morning, my husband informed me that the plague of hairs is gross.  "Gross?" I asked.  "Gross is not the word I would use.  I'd say bothersome and annoying.  Maybe even aggravating . . . but they're not really all that gross."  My spouse of almost 23 years agreed to disagree, "I say they're gross."  This has been his burden to bear for years.  I believe that he thought he was through the worst of it when we received the news that Panda was on her last legs with the cancerous mass growing in her belly.  When we found Fabio the Princely Cat dead on the neighbor's driveway.  Not that he wishes ill will on our pets, only that once they were gone, we would be free of the few negatives which can be a challenge for any pet owner, regardless of the affection we have toward them and the benefits they heap upon us.


But, alas, Hank the Wonder Pup turned out to be quite the shedder (though he was already in the family when we received the bad news concerning Panda's health, his handsome pearl-and-caramel coat had yet to reveal it's copious cycle of renewal).  And a further alas when the winsome Quill won her way into the household before the grass had even grown over her predecessor's hilltop grave.  My poor husband will be stuck with bits of cat and dog dander on his black jacket and work slacks for years to come.  He's become quite adept with the sticky roller.


What bugs me, though, is this word 'gross.'  Generally speaking, I'm a stickler for the proper word in its proper place.  'Gross' seems less than proper for the circumstances of which I've just outlined.  The dictionary defines gross -- which in this situation must be the adjectival form -- as:

2.

unqualified; complete; rank: a gross scoundrel.

3.

flagrant and extreme: gross injustice.

4.

indelicate, indecent, obscene, or vulgar: gross remarks.

5.

lacking in refinement, good manners, education, etc.;unrefined.

Right away, I can knock choice 2 and 4 out of the mix.  They simply don't apply to a plague of hair.  I'm left with either something done to the point of overkill OR that which is unfit to be experienced by the senses.  Choice 4 is the definition implied by most folks using the word 'gross' in the offhand sense.  Kids casually tossing out "that's so-o gross!" mean this when they react to spit in someones hair or milk foaming from the nostrils during a laughing fit (never happened to me, nope, not me, never).  People with a bit more vocabulary sense, also literature and screenplays, etc, would employ choice 3 to include other matters in life.  Now, my gut told me that my husband meant that the inundation of Hank's hair on every surface of his life was obscene or vulgar, possibly even indecent.  But to my way of thinking -- a way not shared by everyone, I agree -- only if he had intended flagrant and extreme would his use be proper.  So, in short, I believe it is fair and informed of me to state that Jimmy Valdez, my sweet handsome man, is incorrect in his usage of the word 'gross' for describing our domestic problem.

Now, the above paragraph outlines the technical reason for my husband's vocabulary faux pas.  THIS paragraph addresses the practical reasons which show he has expressed himself in an erroneous manner.  Those are, in no particular order of degree: doggie poo, mutt mucous, ear debris, blood and puerile wounds.  Five things associated with pet ownership which my husband has never had to experience, handle, treat or otherwise clean.  I, however, have collected at varying times, plastic grocery bags of pooch excrement weighing in excess of 20 pounds.  I, however, have brushed my dog's teeth with chicken-flavored toothpaste, thrusting my fingers along the mouth edges where tooth meets jowl, checking for signs of plaque.  I, HOWEVER, have cleaned the malodorous droopy ears of both Rosie the Mop (an earlier dog who died prematurely of disease) and Hank the Wonder Pup, to inhibit moist bacterial growth from spreading and becoming an infectious problem.  I, however, have mopped and wiped both bright red blood and oozing pus from floors and skin, trying to determine the source from which they originally sprang.  With my enhanced understanding of the word 'gross' now fresh in my rather challenged post-40 brain, it is with gross certainty that I state the aforementioned examples of items secreted by pets (could be a category on a game show) pass the choice 4 definition.  And having declared this, I further declare there are yet better adjectives out there for the purposes of this domestic dilemma.  But I have little time to pursue that avenue at present. 

To say anymore would be gross in the choice 5 sense of the word.

Love you, honey! 

A hair ball by any other name: Hank or Quill.