In a partial reenactment of one of my favorite articles from The Onion, a contingent of well-heeled activists has vanquished the specter of affordable housing, crushing it as an Escalade would an impoverished child. I’m of two minds here. Certainly I’m relieved that my home’s value will only plummet at a medium rate now, rather than extra fast, and I’m glad I won’t have to deal with increased traffic. At the same time, though, you’d have thought they were constructing a bombed-out tenement building with squalor pre-installed or something, given the fervor from some of the residents.
I avoided the public dialogue, as you can imagine. There was a hearing at a local church on Monday, apparently a standing-room-only affair, and the extent of my participation was driving by the parking lot on my way home from work and mentally noting that attendance looked great. In my mind, it was far more likely a household or two from the country club across from the church had already pulled some strings and scuttled the housing project. It was a foregone conclusion that materialized in a dark, smoke-filled study somewhere.
I also steered clear of the online dialogue, thought it was fascinating to skim it. Look below the article, if you’d like. Some of the participants are barely literate and seem hellbent on pushing a strange cocktail of Chicken Soup for the Soul, populist sentiment, conspiracy theory, and deep philosophical undertones culled straight from an Us Weekly editorial. For me, this entry was the crown jewel:
“Rich white people win again.
No fare!!”
No fare indeed, and thanks for the input. You teach us so much! You teach us all.
What the comments say and how they’re said may entertain to a point, but why people are sharing is an entirely different beast. This is what interests me the most. If you surf over to The New York Times, the users will be far more cogent, maybe a little snarky, but coherence aside the question remains: what compels someone to post a comment on the Internet? The journalist who wrote the article proper probably isn’t crying out for additional input. It’s not like this was an opinion piece. And yet there exists a fundamental human need to voice your thoughts to an audience too preoccupied with doing likewise. Wait–did I just describe social media? Perhaps I’ve happened upon the very <3 of the matter.
To say we adjourned on the promise of a non sequitur would only be partially correct because, well, I’d like to think of it more as a fun sequitur. We’re talking about a dog, after all, and dogs are fun, are they not? They can also be loyal. Demanding. Dirty. Noisy. And, as a stark alternative to buying a yearlong supply of oatmeal, a dog would be a far better use of my time, chiefly because raising one would require I learn how to share my minutes, rather than spend them all on myself.
Back in December, during a regular trip through the kennels, I spotted the perfect specimen. Lab mix, six weeks old, and, whether because of her gimpy leg or by sheer dint of personality, mellow. This last point was particularly important. I know what energy level I evince, and I ain’t jogging with anybody, man or beast, unless a flash flood or alien invasion necessitates it. Certainly younger dogs change as they grow, but she was unmistakably low-key, especially when compared to other puppies, and I decided to commit. Thirty minutes later, as they led her from the meeting room back to the kennels, I signed a form and was given a simple directive: be there in the morning, 11 AM sharp, and claim my dog.
I was set, or so I thought, and the rest of the afternoon was spent locating a vet and hitting the brick-and-mortar circuit for my doggie sundries. It felt horrible to do this, but I also asked and answered the question of how much, exactly, the health of this animal was worth and accordingly earmarked an amount to fix her leg. I wanted to make this thing work, you know?
The next morning, on the big day, I was late. I left work late, ran into mid-morning traffic with multiple goddamned trucks sitting on the left lane, and, in a fitting coup de grâce, followed some old dude who was going 35 in a 45 for a few miles off the exit. At 11:12, I peeled into the shelter, only to find another family with the dog–my dog–in the meeting room. A dozen minutes. We’re talking 720 seconds here. What followed was an agonizing hour of waiting and hoping the family would pass on her, but that door slammed shut when one of the daughters cloyingly declared, “No more pound for you, puppy.” Obviously the puppy in question couldn’t even understand this, since I had yet to teach her vocabulary.
I had lost her. There were no five stages of grief. I had basically told Kübler-Ross to suck it and skipped straight to acceptance. That same day, I canceled the vet appointment, returned all my puppy provisions–bed, bowls, food, leash, collar, brush, toys, cleaner, treats–in a wretched epilogue to the whole affair. Perhaps I could’ve kept some items, but the food would’ve gone bad eventually, I reasoned, and the collar was bought for her color, and tying up a couple hundred dollars in depreciating canine assets wasn’t the best use of income.
There was one refrain in the postmortem that I found patently ridiculous. Now, I understand the sentiments came from a good place, but after being assured multiple times that the puppy had gone to a good home, that maybe this arrangement simply wasn’t meant to be and that I’d eventually find the right pet, I had heard enough. I found the right pet. And I failed. I could’ve taken a different route, left work earlier, done a thousand different things to shave off 12 minutes, but I didn’t. It was incompetence, not fate, at the wheel.
Secondhand Rants will return on Tuesday, February 23.