Along Came Daddyhood

In the interest of spring cleaning and eventually selling our house, Ashley and I planned a yard sale and so embarked on the process of inventorying and itemizing the wealth of junk that had accumulated in our house. This was no small job, but we found it to be liberating and cathartic when we observed all our tables and blankets robustly filled with once treasured items.

As early morning on the day of the sale approached and our first customers shuffled about our cast away items, Ashley and I revisited a previous conversation we had joked about. We should sell, nay, give away our dog, Emma.

Before you leap to conclusions though, ignore the simplicity packed into the previous sentence. To accept Emma as an ordinary dog is to casually dismiss the essence of her being.

Our dog Ajax is normal. Though he is princely, moody, and sensitive, his behavior typifies that of most humanized and domesticated dogs. By this definition though, Emma is not normal.

She is a swirling vortex of death, destruction, and mental problems.

Her name is the last vestige of femininity that has been associated with her and a portly frame combined with killer instincts works to betray any softening perceptions one may have of her.

Her weight gain has been especially troubling to us and to combat it, we stopped leaving food in her bowl and began feeding her smaller portions but the balloning continued. It wasn't until I realized that she was supplementing her diet with high fat dishes like squirrel, blue jay, and rats that I understood how her rotundity came to be.

Naturally, with Rowe on the scene, the exit of our natural born killer has been weighing heavily on my mind. But even with her foibles, I still feel she deserves a graceful exit to a setting where she and her unique skill set would be welcomed (like maybe Afghanistan).

So a yard sale seemed to be the perfect venue to find a decent home for Emma.

A couple of prospective adopters passed after seeming concerned that I had to bring Emma out like a restrained Hannibal Lecter, but it was still early when a female customer asked to see Emma and seemed genuinely delighted that Emma was overweight with a nervous tic.

After some pleading with a disinterested husband, I found myself hoisting Emma into their car while excitedly detailing some of Emma's "quirks."

And just like that, the fat, black albatross that hung so heavily around my neck was gone.

But just like Michael Myers, Jason, or the Fast and the Furious movies, she was never really gone because 5 hours later, there she was soaking wet and back in my arms.

The girl gave me some delirious story about cats, eyeballs, and frantic french bulldogs, but I waved her off because Emma is my cross to bear and I was kidding myself to think her exit would come so easily.

I think as parents you are naturally eager to convey all your failures to your children in the spirit of improvement and avoidance. I have no shortage of failures and screw-ups to share, but Emma will be a vivid lesson for me to share with Rowe.

My rescuing of her, though noble, was ill-fated as I had neither the space nor time to properly invest in her. Optimistic intentions without consideration rarely end well. Especially when dealing with a killing machine.

And so when Rowe asks about the shadowy, black shape waddling around our back porch in the pictures or videos of his infancy, instead of needlessly recounting the massacre of woodland creatures around our house, I will use it as an opportunity to teach Rowe about the importance of foresight and consideration in decision-making. Because if not, he could end up with a dog that can eat an entire kitchen floor in one night (a story for another time).