IMPULSIVE PRE-BUYING

Yesterday had great potential to be expensive. My husband thanks the cosmic forces that his wife had great impulse control. I don't think the cosmos had anything to do with it... all I had to do was envision the look on my husband's face when he walked in the door.

What could I be talking about?

One word: puppy.

Ok Ok, one wonders what the hell kind of dog would cause the good people at Mastercard to smile in delight. Well - a purebred yellow lab puppy worth $980.00. Don't look so shocked. I mean really - it was a very cute puppy and besides that - it's not like I bought her. But it has been a year since my sweet chocolate lab Roper passed away, and today actually would have been his 8th birthday. I miss him a lot, and I miss him even more whenever I see someone walking down the sidewalk with a happy brown, furry fellow. Labs have this incredible humanity about them. They actually think they are people, at least Roper did. And they have this way of "smiling" when they are happy. Yes they have the biggest ole lips around, they sag, and they slobber. But you always can see a lab smile. I miss Roper's smiles.

So of course I pried myself from the automatic doors of Petland and ran myself to the van and drove away; telling myself "Jarrett will kill you!"

That evening I couldn't help it. Well yes I could, because Karis bluntly announced, "Daddy we went and saw yellow puppies today!" SIGH - so much for my suave introduction to the topic of dogs. Jarrett gives me this look, and I smile and look down at the granite counter tops, tracing swirls of stone with my fingertip. He says,

"So ... what's up with that?"

I tell him innocently enough that we were just near the pet store because I had to buy new boots (by the way, he never asked me how much I spent on the new, beautiful brown leather boots - because he was too distracted by the dog-issue! HA!). So we popped in to see "all the animals" and they just "happened" to have yellow labs there. He asked me a few questions and then asked how much. He just about choked on his salad. He studies me for a moment and says, "So are you thinking about buying a dog?" I told him well I would, but I know he doesn't think we should. Our yard is way too small after all. I blurt out "Well I wasn't going to go behind your back and buy it!"

"I never said you would, I was just asking if you were thinking that you wanted to buy a dog".

I start to load dishes into the dishwasher and say well yes, now that a year has gone by since Roper died, I have opened myself to it again. Before I didn't think about it too much, it hurt still alot. Of course I start to cry - SHEESH!! Nothing more attractive than said housewife blubbering over the utensil tray. By the way, this is not a tactile maneouver to get what I want. I get emotional a lot, and start to bawl. It's horrible really; I get all blotchy and stuff. He tells me that he wouldn't buy one from Petland, they are over-inflated in their prices, and that he'd buy one from a local breeder. Which prompts us looking on-line at local breeders. No we didn't put in an order LOL. But it brings me to the next topic of the evening... our house.

Jarrett tells me that we don't' have the room for a dog right now. I know he's right. He says that he wishes when we were going to build, that we had just built in Montero Lakes, same area different location of the "house from hell that never did get built". I say well it's too late for that now, because of the housing market (give you an idea, I bought our house for $400,000.00 and it's now worth $725,000.00 two years later). He says, "Wellllllllllllllllll........"

HA he's sneaky too people because he goes into his brief case and pulls out this housing listing IN Montero Lakes. He shows me this house listed, that has a huge yard, is bigger than ours... and about 200 G more than ours. I smile at him and say "yeah?" We go online, and look at it. Of course it is gorgeous. It's brand new, never lived in. And he suggests we take a drive out there this week-end to "check out the area". Then says, "oh then we could have a dog". Now I don't know about you, but I think my fantom dog set the ground work for him to bring up a new house!! He was just bidding his time this guy! Next thing I know he whips out his calculator (that's not a metaphor, it really was his calculator) and starts figuring out how much the mortgage would be - which only turns out to be an extra $500.00.

So, am I getting a dog and a house? Oh who knows! I mean with us you can never tell. Things we do are outlandish, and not exactly pre-planned too often. We aren't impulsive, but we go with the flow. When opportunities present themselves, we are always willing to explore the possibilities. Anyways, I'll keep you all up-dated on the whole dog/house conundrum.