So I was talking with my crazy friend Wendy the other night, and I said, “Guess what?”
And she said “What?”
And I said, “We got a dog?”
“A WHAT?”
“A dog.”
“What kind?”
“A chi-who-what.”
“What?”
“A chihuahua cross.”
“Oh, you do not know what a little slice of hell you are in for. You have to walk them and they’re nervous and they lick and they’re so high maintenance and why would you get a dog like that! You’ll never be able to take care of it!”
0.0
After womanfully refraining from mentioning that I have raised four children, two with special education needs, and have yet to let any of them starve or get kicked out of school or wallow in their own filth, I delicately pointed out that our last dog lasted fifteen years, the last three of which (the vet has reminded us time and again) have been against all expectations of breed and size. I may have mentioned that I’m home alone most of the day, and that I only ever leave in two hour increments, and that Big T was here very often during those, and he loved the dog. I also may have said something about poring over websites and puppyfinder.com and pawnation.com for nearly six months in order to find a rescue pocket dog that fit our criteria and was not five-hundred miles away.
I did, perhaps forget to remind her that I’ve been planning a small dog for my lap from the moment I realized Zoomboy and Squish were not going to fit there forever, and that the need intensified after we put Dennis Quaid down, and that now, with our older dog’s decline, that need has become urgent, pressing, necessary, because I do not want to be in the house without a dog when Chicken goes back to school after the holidays.
I don’t think she knew about my friend Rhys, who has been showing me cute pictures of rescue dogs for ten months, every night on Twitter, hoping something will click.
In fact, she was so busy telling me why this dog was a bad idea, I don’t think I got to tell her the most important parts:
* He’s twelve weeks old.
* He’s the most mellow chi-who-what that I’ve ever met.
* As long as we take him walking at regular intervals, he’s mostly house trained.
* I named him after several characters in stage, screen, and outer space including–
—Baby’s lover in Dirty Dancing
—The owner of the fictional gay-for-pay porn place I set in Sacramento for one of my book series
–Whomever Brandon Flowers was singing to in Jenny Was a Friend of Mine when he said:
“Hey Johnnie!!!”
And, the most important thing I need to say–
He loves us and we love him.
Hey Johnnie!!!
