thing about playing poker, but it didn’t matter. Although there were lots of prizes for the top players, the tournament was meant to be a fun way to raise money for a few charities that were very close to my heart.
I grabbed the studio phone and dialed Dan’s extension to leave him a message.
He answered on the first ring. “Good morning.”
“Good morning. What are you doing here? I was going to leave a message.”
“We’re doing a promotion at Balboa Park today, so I stopped by to grab the van and some equipment. What’s up?”
“Do we still have an open seat open for the tournament?”
“We have exactly one seat left.”
“Can you save it for Lori before it disappears?” I asked.
“You got it.”
“Thanks. I’ll have her submit the payment online.”
“You two are certainly getting close,” Dan said. “I saw the video.”
“What video?”
Lori held up her hand. “Thirty seconds.”
“Gotta run. Thanks for getting Lori in the tournament.” I hung up on Dan.
Lori bounced up and down in her chair. “Yeah! I can’t wait to win!”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There will be a hundred other players and you happen to be looking at the defending champion.”
“Well, after tomorrow night you will be looking at the defending champion, so there.”
I grinned. “We’ll see about that. Here we go . . .” I stuck my headphones back on, scooted closer to the control board, and pressed the microphone button. “Welcome back to the Dr. Tough Love show. Lori Martin is with me, my trusty cohost who is now entered in the Dr. Tough Love Charity Poker Tournament, which will be held tomorrow evening at the La Jolla Cove Bridge Club. I do want to thank you for your participation even though I plan on winning again.”
“It will be such a pleasure to watch you eat those words.”
“Lucky for me I love to eat.” I chuckled. “Let’s go to the phones . . . Sonya in Sabre Springs, you’re on the air.”
“Hey, I’ve got kind of a weird problem, so I’m not sure you can help me.”
“We will certainly give it a shot. What’s going on?”
“Well, my boyfriend likes to have our cat and two dogs in the bedroom with us when we’re having sex.”
Lori covered her mouth to keep from laughing, but I didn’t have such restraint.
“I’m being serious!” Sonya said. “This really bugs me.”
“Okay, okay.” I tried to curb my laughter while thinking about how to approach this problem. It really caught me off guard since our producer, Jim, had only put in the show notes on our monitor that Sonya was calling about a problem with animals on the bed. I assumed he meant that the animals were sleeping with them and hogging up too much space, which was a common problem.
I adjusted the microphone. “When you say your boyfriend wants to make sure the animals are with you when you’re having sex, what exactly does he do? Pick them up one by one and put them in their places or does he ring a cowbell and they come running?”
“He used to just call them, and they would all follow him down the hallway to the bedroom, but now he doesn’t even do that because they know the routine. Well, except for Fleas Witherspoon, who’s pretty much in the bedroom all day unless she’s eating or pooping.”
“And Fleas Witherspoon is . . .”
“The cat.”
“And the dogs are . . .”
“Winnie the Poodle and Droolius Caesar.”
Lori smiled. “And why does it bother you that they’re in the room with you?”
“Because they’re watching us! It just feels wrong, since they’re like our children. And you should see the way Winnie the Poodle looks at me. It’s like she doesn’t approve or she’s judging us. I’m pretty sure Droolius Caesar will be scarred for life. I swear sometimes it looks like he’s shaking his head at us, but he never looks away.”
I stifled a laugh “And what does your boyfriend say when you tell him you feel uncomfortable having sex in front of them?”
“He says they don’t have a problem with it, so I shouldn’t either, and that animals have been having sex in front of complete strangers for centuries.”
“Have you tried turning off the lights, so you don’t see them?”
“That just makes it worse.”
“How so?”
“I get even more self-conscious because I know Fleas Witherspoon is watching me in the dark. Plus, I can hear when one of them starts cleaning themselves, or worse, when one starts licking my feet or another part of my