Honesty: try it

Some lessons are better learned by watching others struggle through them, rather than by trying to do it yourself. For you anti-DIY'rs out there, learn a lesson in simple honesty from me. My wife has this unbelievable love for animals-it is almost consuming. The compassion she has for the lost and dying little puppies, kittens, and rabbits of the world greatly impacts whatever schedule or agenda there was previous to the arrival of their helpless condition. On one such occassion I was driving Shannon to work when, with the precision of an eagle's eye, she noticed a helpless little puppy. She made me pull the car over while she got out to rescue this little animal. It was like a scene from a movie; the little guy sprinted into her arms and they twirled around in a loving embrace...Anyway, at this point she's so worked up about finding this puppy's home, she starts knocking on doors asking if anyone knew where it belonged. Of course, no one did. This puppy was about to make her late for work, and so my wife says to me, "after you drop me off at work, I want you to take it to a shelter." At that point, I had to. But, here's the problem, it's a lot harder than you might think to drop a puppy off at a shelter. I don't know how many places I tried to take that puppy and each time I was gently denied. I, too, was on a time budget, and that's when I made the pivotal mistake. I thought to myself, I can drop this puppy off where we found it and surely someone will find it; so that's exactly what I did. I made my mind up that I would go to my grave letting Shannon think the puppy was safe and sound in an animal shelter awaiting its rightful owner. She called me later that day asking about the puppy and I led her to believe that I had indeed dropped the puppy off, and that was the end of it. Or so I thought. The very next day as she was driving to work, guess what she saw? And then I had a lot of explaining to do.