Originally Posted September 2009



Again with my life being like a bad sitcom, what’s up with that? We have visitation with my younger step kids every Saturday. It’s hard sometimes to find things to entertain their fragile little minds that do not entail an ass load of money and too much physical exertion on my part, being three months out of a major hip surgery. Usually, we split up for part of the day, my husband hanging with his son doing guy stuff like spittin’ and fartin’ and I with my stepdaughter doing girly stuff like hair, makeup, and shopping. Well, last Saturday, I needed to finish my husband’s birthday gift and decided to take my stepdaughter to Kohls with me. A horrible puppy mill called “The Puppy Place” is located in the same plaza, and although I am absolutely disgusted with their practices and would never propagate the abuse by paying them any money whatsoever, I feel that it is not the fault of the poor innocent little puppies contained therein, and when we’re in the area I will take Sierra to give those puppies at least a few moments of joy in their sad little puppy mill lives. Puppy mill puppies need love too.



I always let my stepdaughter choose one puppy to take out and shower with affection. This time she fell in love with a little Yorkie; not my pick, but he was still cute. The woman wearing 4XL (at least) mismatched scrubs (because you SELL puppies, you have make a half-assed attempt at fooling people into thinking that you are a veterinary professional?) brings the Yorkie over to me, and it immediately squirms about, scratching up my neck in the process. I bend over to put Twitchy McWooferson on the floor of our little cubicle and six inches from the floor, the hairy, squirming little beast twists right out of my arms, lands on his tummy, and begins to yelp, no, scream bloody murder. Of course everyone in the store gets quiet, and 4XL and her Teletubby looking associate rush over and start yelling “She dropped him,” swearing, and basically embarrassing the puppy love right out of me. Meanwhile Drama Dog is up and running around wondering what all the fuss is about as 4XL hits the side of the cubicle and swears, scaring my stepdaughter, who until this point had kept her 9-year-old composure surprisingly well. Then, 4XL, who had been acting as though I had repeatedly drop kicked the furry little Christ-figure, has the audacity to say “Well, looks like the dog is fine, go ahead and keep playing with him.” Duhrrrr, uh, ok! Let me just put my helmet back on first, asshat.



I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the term “L’esprit de l’escalier,” loosely translated as “Holy shit I’m slow,” whereby someone insults you or makes a disparaging remark and you walk away, thinking of a comeback only after it would be apropos to let it fly. Well, there were lots of them, and not just by me. “This puppy’s broken, may I have another?” was a good one. “Eureka! My theory has been proven! Puppies don’t bounce!” and “I thought kitty was supposed to land on his feet” were pretty decent, too.



But the best one, thought up by the meeting of the minds that is my husband and stepson, was “IT…JUST…WON’T…DIE!!! This puppy is the devil! It must be destroyed!” That one would have provided 4XL and Tinky-Winky with some WTF-ness and me and my 9-year-old stepdaughter with some new found arrest records had the fucktard twins actually had the wherewithal to look up the number for 911.



We won’t be going back to The Puppy Mill anytime soon. I am also hoping the nickname “Puppy Dropper,” like “Sake Bomb” before it, does not stick.