“Don’t look at me like that,” my father said, softening a bit. The animal then stood on all fours, gazed up at all of us gratefully, and urinated all over the linoleum.[21]
Millie was returned. I shipped off to the East Coast for college. For the next 15 years, I felt as if I was carrying my home on my back. I lived under 19 different roofs in 11 cities, with significant periods in two countries abroad. All the while my parents remained in the same house—and always there was that sign, increasingly tattered by the elements, admonishing would-be intruders to “Beware of Dog.”[22]
Then there was the time I walked up the driveway to discover a brand-new sign—“Beware of Dog”—in place of the old one! And still, cruelest of fates, no furry friend[23] in the backyard to justify the warning.
I have since made a new home, with the woman I love. Our house doesn’t have a dog in the backyard, either. My wife, a practical woman, stresses the importance of hygiene[24] if we’re to have a baby. It’s a not-so-veiled suggestion of what’s to come, one that my own parents prefer to express in the declarative rather than the conditional.[25] Apparently, they’ve forgotten that a land tortoise went AWOL[26] under my watch. But as it happens, the idea of taking on a fellow traveler is slowly starting to grow on me. In my more daring flights of fancy[27] I even consider placing a “Baby on Board” sign in our car, to encourage safe driving from nearby vehicles. Premature[28]? Maybe. Or maybe not. Children, tortoises, puppies—who knows what precious cargo we might pick up on our way home.
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