Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Very Bad Parenting

Shef loves my mom’s dog.

“Give Amber a treat,” he says eight million times per day.

If I’m feeding Amber, he’ll say, “Help, Sheffield,” which means that Sheffield will help with the food.

“Touch Amber!” He says, leaning over the baby gate that separates them. “Pet!”

When he’s done eating, it’s “Play with Amber!”

You get the picture.

His affection for Amber is kind of a blessing because I really dislike the dog, and therefore give her very little love. The dog probably deserves better, even though she’s slobbery and hairy (“Dog hair in mouf,” Shef reports occasionally, while fishing around in between his teeth for the offending piece of fur). She barks a lot, especially outside; and she chooses not to obey commands that I know she understands.

Anyway, tonight when Amber barked annoyingly upon the arrival of Dan at the front door, Shef said, clear as a bell, “Damn dog.”

“What?” I said calmly.

“Damn dog,” he repeated. Dan and I looked at each other despairingly.

“Maybe he’s saying ‘down’?” Dan suggested.

And so we hoped, but after making him repeat it ten or twelve more times, we can say pretty definitively that it was damn. I don’t remember using this expression, but because I dislike the dog the most of everyone, I think it must have been me.

And so, thank you very much for the worst mother of the year award.

2 comments:

jdoc said...

If your bad parenting makes me laugh this hard, it cannot be all bad.

LH said...

Amber's a good name for a dog.