Love Is A Battlefield (But At Least My Dog Got An Autograph Out Of The War)

Signed, Sealed, Delivered…just as long as the package isn’t coming from a Canadian Crooner.

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“Oh, I can do better than THAT”, I scoffed to myself.

I kind of had to.

The night I met Some Random Chick At A Joan Jett Concert (or as I like to call her “Randommoiselle” -a portmanteau of “random” and “mademoiselle”), she took me up on my offer to drive her home. As she sat in my car, she lay her iPod on top of her handbag (it was 2006, back when humans owned Apple devices that only played music). That tiny song machine stared up from the floor, mocking me, daring me to ask the ONE QUESTION that would determine whether my passenger was potential girlfriend material:

“Can you plug that into my stereo? I want to know the last song you listened to.”	

Dear reader, I have a theory. We’ll call it “Beaverton’s Law™️“ (now a registered trademark of BeaverCom International™️) and it goes like this:

The best way to determine whether someone has larceny in their heart is to find out the most recent song they listened to.

(This theory works for portable electronic devices as well as streaming ones.)

What if this wonderful young lady (Random, for short) had a - oh, I don’t know - Michael Bublé fetish or something equally disturbing. THAT’S THE KIND OF PRECIOUS INTEL I NEED BEFORE EMBARKING ON A LIFELONG COMMITMENT.

“Now, this is the most important, Rat. When it comes down to making out, whenever possible, put on side one of Led Zeppelin IV. If that fails, try Bublé’s Christmas album.” (Photo: Universal Pictures)

Hell, if her iPod spit out Bublé, I might not even stop the car to let her out (Oh hush - I’d slow the car down to a reasonable speed before shoving her onto the road. I’m not a monster). 

She may not have been a rock n’ roller but I’m sure she would have been an excellent tuck n’ roller.

Tuck and roll? No harm, no fowl. (Photo: Penelope A Riley)

Thankfully, no lounge-y tunes poisoned my car stereo that evening. It was, in fact, something cool, rocking and thoroughly unexpected:

“Heartbreaker” by Pat Benatar.

“You were in diapers when this song came out!”, I gasped, confident that she no longer enjoyed the sleek comfort of Pampers.

You see, I LOOOOOOOVE Pat Benatar. And Random even owned a classic Benatar concert t-shirt. 

This musical turn of events would, of course, demand a full, complete and total stop of the car when we reached her house.

Sure, Hell is For Children, but these super-absorbent cotton shorts are a heavenly gift to urine overflow.

Let’s fast forward six weeks from the musical car test. Random and I had a long Saturday night date and decided to go back to my place at 3am to get a snack (blueberry waffles, naturally). We turned on the TV and found a Lifetime Television Intimate Portrait of Pat Benatar and her husband/ Producer/ Guitarist/Musical Partner Neil Giraldo. 

That got me to thinking “I wonder if they’re on tour’ (they were!), followed by “Oooh, I’ll surprise Random with tickets. That’ll really impress her!”. 

My next thought was “Well, anyone can buy concert tickets” which leads us back to the now-famous line that began this literary journey today:

“Oh, I can do better than THAT.”

You see, since the dark days of cave dwelling, men have sought to impress their ladies. I’d even argue this need was the second primal instinct man developed after survival. Of course, Jurassic Johnnies had a far more difficult road to impress their Prehistoric Pamelas than modern-day casanovas. These grumpy grunters had to risk life and limb to win hearts - hunting bison for a romantic date night dinner, slaying a brontosaurus for a birthday gift or stripping a bear of its hide to make a winter vest (Are you warm NOW, Pam?).

Or maybe all they needed to do was just take a damn bath.

Oh Wilma, Fred is gonna make your Bed Rock later tonight. (Photo: Hanna-Barbera Studios)

Thankfully, I don’t have to wrestle a rhino (I bruise easily) and I have a freezer filled with store-bought frozen breakfast treats. But ordering concert tickets online falls a little short of heroic. So I did what any good neanderthal would do; I thought outside the cave.

The following Monday morning, I cold-called Pat and Neil’s manager with a pitch:

‘I see that Pat and Neil are on a national tour and I’d love to help you promote the shows and sell tickets. My company has recently done successful online marketing campaigns for a bunch of classic rock artists — Joan Jett, Rush, Meatloaf, Rod Stewart, The Cars — and we can do the same for you. And the kicker is, you don’t have to pay me; just give me tickets and backstage passes to any shows I choose.”

Deal closed.

Yeah, I may not be a Canadian crooner getting ladies underwear thrown at me on stage, but I landed rock stars as clients to impress some random girl I met a month and a half before.

Up yours, Bublé.

“To impress my wife, I changed my name to Sonny and found this here new duet partner. 

Up yours, Beaverton.”

Ok, so here’s where the dog comes into our story. Random’s pup Olive was a shining light in my life. Hey, Olive even got her own blog post way back in 2015. I never knew I loved pups until I met Olive.

So, one of the things we did to promote the concerts was set up contests with newspapers, magazines and websites where Pat and Neil were playing. For instance, we ran a contest with Time Out Philadelphia to give away autographed 8x10 photos. So after choosing the winners, we had the pictures personally addressed and signed by Pat and Neil.

Weeks later, my intern told me that a package was returned and marked “No Such Address Exists”. I asked what the name was on the package and she said “Olive Shouse”. 

“What an odd name”, I said. “How does she spell that?”

“Olive S-h-o-u-s-e”  was the reply.

Me: “Oh, as in ‘Olive’s house!”

The best we could come up with was a little girl named Olive saw the contest, entered it online, didn’t know her home address and put her name as “Olives House” (which we read as “Olive Shouse”).

So what else could I possibly do with an 8x10 picture that read:

“Olive,

Peace!

Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo”

And that, my friends, is how Olive the Dachshund became the first canine in history to get a personal autograph from rock and roll legends.

“I may not be into rock and rolling but I can use a rock FOR bowling. 

Up yours, Beaverton.”