Discipline is not my friend

I’m a hopeless disciplinarian. Nobody cares about my loving guidance. They simply follow their own ideas. Snapdragon, the four-year-old Egg … even the dogs.

When we returned from some shopping spree, Snapdragon found an empty sleeping tablet container with teeth marks on our bedroom floor.

Which was not as bad as the discovery Egg made seconds later in her bedroom – Rocky, the miniature pinscher, had vomited on her bed and in her toy container.

Poor Rocky was in a bad state. He tried to chase the cat, but ran head-first into the palisades. The dog who was agile enough to climb onto the kitchen counter to steal the tablets earlier, tried to jump onto a bench, but was so disorientated he simply fell on his back.

It was easy to put two and two together. Snapdragon grabbed the little mutt and raced off to the vet, while I calmed Egg down.

The vet fed the poor dog activated carbon to induce even more vomiting and kept him overnight for observation. The next morning, Egg and I picked him up from the doggy hospital and I had to pay a substantial bill. Rocky was almost as good as new but, back home, I treated Egg and the dog to a stern talking to about drug abuse.

Snapdragon refused to listen to my sermon and went outside for a cigarette which is, of course, just another drug.

Earlier this week, Egg’s teacher at the nursery school told Snapdragon a little story, which everyone besides me enjoyed.

Apparently the four year olds are learning about animal homes this week. Teacher Judy told them a dog lives in a doghouse and a bird lives in a nest.

Then Egg added her two cents worth of knowledge to the lesson: “A pig lives in a pigsty,” she informed her classmates. The teacher was impressed, but in a rare humble moment, Egg informed her that knowledge is not a big achievement for her.

“I’m an expert on the subject, after all. This weekend my dad and I went to the vet in his car and his car is a real pigsty!”

That’s life. Save a little girl’s dog. Try to equip her with the skills to stay on the straight and narrow… and she’ll call your car a pigsty.

There’s certainly a life lesson in all of this. I must now only figure out what it is.

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