How to spend a Saturday

How was your weekend? Really? That good? Awesome. Mine was the typical, obsessed, dog breeder’s weekend.

Here’s a re-cap.

How A Dog Breeder Spends Her Saturday

Get in car, drive three hours, cross border. When asked ‘Purpose of visit?’ contemplate answering ‘Picking up pregnant dog’, decide against it, answer ‘Shopping’, instead.

Drive two more hours, arrive at meet up location. Consider how correct Barb was in suggesting that an outlet mall, two weekends before Christmas, might not be ideal as a meeting spot. Shrug, buy and drink fourth coffee of day, and thank God for Starbucks.

Meet Barb, get Mae and assorted dog supplies, get back in car, drive back to border again, with quick stop at Walmart to pick up vacuum and snow shovel. Don’t even bother lying to border guard when he asks you purpose of trip. Watch border guard’s eyes glaze over as you explain the complexities of co ownership. Drive away amazed he let you bring $150 worth of electronics back without charging you duty.

Grab more coffee, stretch legs, let Mae out to pee, get back on road to face three hour trip home from border.

Notice that gas tank is almost on empty, and boyfriend seems to feel no rush to fill up. Feel eyes glazing over as he explains that the ‘e’ light actually means car can make it another 50 kilometers or more. Feel horror mounting as boyfriend smugly recaps recent 20-20 show confirming that ‘e’ light is warning, then anger growing as idiot boyfriend mentions website where people (all guys, you are sure) recount how far they made it with their cars on ‘e’. Tell boyfriend in graphic detail what kind of bodily harm you will inflict on him if he even thinks about driving on empty while you and pregnant dog are in car with him.

Notice that it’s snowing, curse. Loudly.

Watch boyfriend drive past gas station because he ‘doesn’t like their gas’. Contemplate hitting him with shovel after he tells you that gas is so different at different stations (unlike shoes, which are all the same) which is a clear analogy to your preference for shoes from Browns instead of Payless. Explain quality of shoes to him and how important manufacturing process and materials are, unlike gas, which all comes from same squished up prehistoric gunk. Reach for shovel when he rolls eyes.

Find ‘acceptable’ gas station, fill up car, let Mae our for another pee, get back on road.

Notice it’s snowing more heavily, curse. Even more loudly.

Drive two hours in zero visibility. Contemplate just why on earth you have a Chipmunks Christmas song on your iPod. Twice.

Pick up fast food, let Mae out for another pee, eat fast food in car.

Arrive home, discover dogs have knocked down baby gate and have gone on Texas Chainsaw massacre style pee fest in upstairs of house. Remind yourself that you meant to pick up paper towels while you were out.

Wrangle dogs, clean up pee, crate dogs, arrange Mae in quiet room.

Visit Bunny and puppies, discover Bunny has eaten corners off of box spring, christen her ‘DumbDumb Bubblegum’ for her habit of chewing everything in sight. Clean up ten gazillion puppy poos and pees. Wonder why you don’t just have cats.

Get boyfriend to feed dogs while you’re tending to Bunny and kids. After feeding, he puts stopper in sink so he can soak bowls. Boyfriend notices pee on floor, goes to clean up, gets distracted, probably by contemplation on whether its possible to drive to Florida on quarter tank of gas.

Forget about running sink.

Hear boyfriend screaming, discover forlorn dogs watching flood waters rising towards crates. Giggle, but internally only.

Clean up dog room floor, using towels, because you forgot to buy paper towels, dammit dammit dammit.

Put in laundry.

Contemplate trading dogs for cats. Small, quiet cats. Stuffed cats, from Steiff.

Head for bed, leaving boyfriend surfing tankonempty.com

Throw shoe at his head.