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My weekend was taken over by dogs and birthday parties. And not in a good way.

The birthday party was for one of Sam’s little friends. Sam spent the morning bouncing around, asking when the party was starting and was it time now? Now? NOW? And then once we finally got to the party, Sam – now thoroughly exhausted – immediately developed a serious case of stage fright, and refused to leave my side.

The dog part is my mom’s fault. She’s been looking for a dog for months – why this is taking her so long, I have no idea – but I’ve gotten into the habit of scanning the websites of local pet shelters from time to time to see if a there’s a good candidate for her there. So of course the inevitable happened, and I fell in love with a dog I saw on one of the websites, which is how I found myself sitting outside the West Palm Beach Humane Society for several hours on Sunday, waiting with all of the other lunatics for the shelter to open its doors to us. And then once the doors did open, the people waiting outside stampeded in, ready to come to blows over who was going to get which puppy. It was all very reminiscent of Wal-Mart on Black Friday morn.

Unfortunately, my dog was not yet ready for adoption, so after weathering this mob scene, I had to go home empty handed. But it did give me a brilliant idea that came to me a in a blinding flash:

A puppy would make the perfect birthday gift for a little kid.

Genius, no? Think about it. What better way to buy a child’s love than by showing up with a cute, squirming, be-ribboned puppy just for them? Okay, sure, it might tick off the parents, who will now have to deal with a peeing, pooping, whining present. But that’s practically irrelevant when you think of how insanely popular you will become among the under-ten set.

Posted 29 January 2008 at 09:18 AM