HALFWAY EXCITED

When I started kindergarten, my mom got a dog for me and my siblings. Her name was Brandy, but we called her BB. She was a long-haired Chihuahua mix who was temperamental, prone to obesity, and really couldn’t stand people. We loved her like crazy. All of us. Everyone in the family worshipped her. When we’d have friends over, she’d chase them into the other room or growl at them if they got too close to one of the family. And we’d always take her side. We were a real “love-me-love-my-insane-dog” type clan.

When I started college, BB died. So I have always associated her life with my childhood and her death with its passing.

Consequential as that sounds, her death was even more momentous for my mom and stepdad. A few years later I would get another dog, and then, over time, three more dogs, two of whom have also since died. But my parents never owned another dog after BB. And that was 21 years ago.

So yesterday I bought them a dog — this little white puppy that I found, with Erin and Ben’s help, at a “country store” in their hometown.

I have wanted to get my parents a puppy for years. I don’t understand how anyone can be dogless for even a day. But they were always full of excuses: We’re not home enough; who will look after it when we travel? etc. They both mouthed the same reasons, but I could tell that it was my stepdad who was really against it. If he wanted a dog, they’d have a dog. Just like if he wanted a new house or car or stereo or computer, they’d have those things. My mom’s wanting something has never been reason enough to get it. But don’t get me started on the gender inequality in their marriage. I’ll just leave it at this: One time she said to me, “If Dad dies, I don’t want another husband, but I’m going to get me a dog first thing.”

One excuse my mom offered for their not having a dog is that BB’s death really tore up my stepdad. And it’s true. He loved her as much as everyone else did, and he had to watch her die after her stroke. He didn’t want to go through that again.

So they have been dogless forever. And I decided enough was enough. I know what’s best for them — I always have — and it’s time everyone acknowledged that.



I was just going to surprise them, but I had it too deeply ingrained in me that you don’t give pets as presents. So I looked around for a long time, mostly in the classified ads. I really wanted to adopt one from a shelter, but I wanted to get them a small dog and a really young one so it would be with them a good long time — that kind of dog is hard to come by at the pound; you basically just have to get lucky. Then E and B took me to this place that had just the kind of dog they’d like. I should have just bought it on sight, but I had to hem and haw, as my mom would say. I convinced myself that I had to ask them first; otherwise, if they really didn’t want a pet, I’d end up keeping it myself — a third dog. So I left without the pup, drove two and a half hours home, tried to forget it.

After three minutes of trying to forget it, I call my mom and say, "There's a Christmas present I want to buy you, but I thought I better ask first." Then I spill the beans. I can tell she's thrilled but she's trying to act like she's not. There's something in that generation that tells them that every pleasure has to be tempered. All compliments are qualified. All sex is married. All money is saved. Unalloyed joy is alien to them. I know just the thing to convince her, though: "I'm going to send you a picture, and you call back and tell me what you think." Two minutes later the phone rings. She says, "That is the cutest dog I have ever seen," followed quickly by "Dad will kill me. I may have to move in with you."

I am so thrilled that my mom is doing something simply because SHE wants to do it that I summarily say, "OK, I'm getting it. I'll call you later." A minute later she calls back. I think she's going to backtrack. But she says, "I already have her name picked out: Molly."

Yay.

So I drive back two and a half hours to pick up Molly. We stop and play with Erin and Maggie and Charlie, then head home. My plan had been to give her to my mom the next morning, but I decide that very night would be best. I call her and say, "I'm bringing her tonight." I can hear my stepdad saying something in the background. My mom says, "No, you've done enough driving tonight." I get worried. "Did you tell him?" I ask. She says, "Yeah," nervously, "I think it'll be OK." I say, "I'm going to bring her tonight," and my mom says something to my stepdad, then says to me, "Dad doesn't want you driving on K-10; he says you'll hit a deer."

That is the essence of my stepdad: forecasting the worst — and usually the zaniest — outcome for any set of circumstances: If your hot-water heater makes a tiny rumble, the whole house is sure to explode; if you let your gas tank fall below half full, something terrible will happen to you in the car; if a newspaper remains on your porch more than an hour after it's thrown, every thief in town will know you're not home; if you pay even a single bill late or don't pay your credit card balance in full every month, you'll have to declare bankruptcy; if you don't wash your car inside and out at least once a week, its resale value will plummet; and on and on.

Some people might recognize a touch of paranoia there; I just recognize my childhood. So I concede that it would be terrible to kill a deer for the sake of delivering a puppy, and I tell her I will wait until the morning.

But my mom calls me one more time that night. She says, "How is Molly doing?" I hear my stepdad say something in the background. My mom says, "Dad wants to know how much she weighs." Then she says, "Dad has been reading about Molly's kind of dog on the Internet. Don't tell him I said this, but he's halfway excited."