Wednesday, August 9, 2017

What Were We Thinking?

We had an amazing two-week vacation on the east coast with my family, but I arrived home to a mountain of paperwork and a to-do list a mile long. The top of the list is my new book. I finished writing book three of The Sycamore Detective Agency series last month, and my editors are starting to return manuscripts, so I am anxious to get on the revisions and get the book that much closer to being ready.

So, what’s the absolute stupidest thing you can do if you have a bunch of work to get done? Get a puppy, of course.

The boys wrote up a puppy contract just before Christmas last year, and have been harassing us to sign it ever since. It states that we, as the parents, will need to do nothing and pay for nothing in regard to the puppy. In exchange for agreeing to board the dog, they would handle all the care, feeding, and paying.

We were naturally skeptical, based on previous smaller-scale pet experiences. We have watched them literally forget that we even owned goldfish three days after bringing them home from the fair. Also, as far as the financial side goes, between the three of them they have seven bucks, so footing the bill for a dog seemed like it might stretch them a little thin.

After some major private parental deliberations, we decided we would let them slide on a few of the finer points of the financial contract, and bit the bullet. It was time to get a dog. We broke the news to them while we were on vacation, which resulted in some extra security and cleaning fees, since we had to scape them off the ceiling of our Airbnb.

We arrived home from our trip late Saturday night, so naturally, Sunday morning we got up and drove to get a puppy.

Super dumb idea.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever been involved in taking care of an eight-week-old dog, but they are just ridiculous. They’re like having a crawling infant, except you can’t put diapers on them. Human babies rarely shred their diapers with needle-sharp fangs.

We’ve only had her for three days and she’s peed and pooped on our carpet - and this is just a rough guess, since I’m sleep-deprived – about three thousand times. You do not want to visit right now, and if you do, do NOT sit on the carpet.

Actually, on second thought, please visit. You can puppy sit for a night or two! It’s a blast. (Plus, I’ll get some sleep.)

The night we brought her home, my wife told me that I got the first shift since she needed to get up early for work. Fine, I said. No problem. I foolishly thought she meant I would get to sleep in my own bed and just get up when the dog needed to go out. Turns out that wasn’t what she meant at all.

I was getting in bed and she looked at me like I was an idiot. (I get that a lot.)

“What are you doing?”
“Umm… is this a trick question?”
“You said you’d take the first night.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
“Then why are you getting in this bed? You and the dog are downstairs in the guest room.”
“Huh?”
“Goodnight.”

So, I slept downstairs in the guest room with the puppy. That was fun. Between her being in a new house without her mommy, and me being three feet from her, and both of us crying, the dog and I got a combined total seven minutes of sleep.

The next day, while yawning continuously, I got exactly nothing done. I was able to say things like “Potty,” “No,” “Good dog,” and “Dammit, my ankles are not chew toys!” about a million times, though, so I felt good about my day.

After another night of being awake in the guest room, day two provided zero opportunities for getting any work done either, but I did spend about half the day in the backyard asking the puppy to go potty in a designated spot. It was majorly fulfilling. I got to praise her a couple times when it actually happened correctly, but I spent the remainder of the day cleaning up all the spots on the carpet where it happened incorrectly. That was great, too.

Night three in the guest room provided a little more sleep for both of us, as she seems to be getting more comfortable in her new surroundings. Maybe I’ll get to sleep in my own bed tonight? Wouldn’t that be cool.

As for today, the only thing I’ve managed to do between puppy training is write this, and I have to stop now, because it’s time to go potty again.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll publish that third book when the dog is two or three years old.

Puppies are fun. You should totally get one.

See you soon,

-Smidge


Copyright © 2017 Marc Schmatjen


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