A Little Hive Never Hurt Anyone, Right?

by Patti

Yesterday I took S to the doctor so that they could inject all kinds of crazy into her arms to see if she had allergies. Her arms blew up. She has allergies.

According to her arms, cats are the worst, followed closely by trees and weeds and grass, and all kinds of other things that exist in daily life.

So, no cats for her.

She is also allergic to dogs, according to her arms.

Just this past weekend her father’s heart underwent a miracle of sorts, and he agreed to let her have a dog by her birthday in April if she could promise to behave like a kid from a Hallmark commercial. So far,in the past 3 days, she has dried and put away the dishes 3 times (because our dishwasher is BROKEN!), taken 2 showers without prompting, played with her hamster (which, according to her arms, she is also allergic to) to the point he asked her to leave him the hell alone, and cleared the table after each meal. Last night I watched her unpack and put away all of the groceries by herself, and I nudged M in the ribs to have him look up and see what his promise of utopia had created: Perfectly Legal Win-Win Child Labor! I mean, wow, I haven't put away a dish in days!

Being an only child, she gets a little lonely from time to time, and she finally convinced M that not only she is old enough to take on the responsibility of a dog, she also pretty much NEEDS one since she has no siblings. So you can imagine the heartbreak and disappointment when her arms told her yesterday that, even though her stone-hearted-when-it-comes-to-dogs father had a revelation, she shouldn’t get a dog after all.

But then S pointed out to me that our neighbor has terrible allergies, and they just got a dog. And the neighbor hasn’t died yet; in fact, she hasn’t even sneezed! So we are looking into the so-called “hypoallergenic” dogs and plan to have S hang out with a couple of different breeds to see if having a dog will suck for her. If her eyes don’t swell into little slits on her face and she doesn’t have to reach for the inhaler just to pet the dog, we’ll get a dog.

Despite all of the chores and behaving and obeying she has been doing, because that must be exhausting the crap out of her, she has been so happy the last few days. She has been dreaming up names for her phantom dog and planning the things they will do together, and browsing the Internet for ridiclous dog outfits and imagining where he might sleep and how he might feel cuddled next to her.....

I swear, her arms better be wrong.