A Puppy for Christmas

“I wish we had the money to buy Billy that bicycle for Christmas,” my husband lamented,

pointing to the toys in Sears’ window. “But we’ll get him something he wants more – a puppy!

I was elated. Already I was seeing Billy holding a puppy. “Oh, Bill, he’ll love that! – I’ll go

to the shelter tomorrow, and…”

“Hold on a minute, Betty,” he interrupted, as we walked back to the parking lot for the car.

“First of all, forget the shelter. We’re not buying any dog, we’re buying a pedigree, a registered dog;

you know – with papers.”

“Papers!” I squealed, trying to catch up to him. “There are times we can’t even afford the

Sunday papers! Those pedigree dogs cost a fortune!” Bill waited for me to catch up, and reminded me

of the bonus he will get on Christmas Eve.

“And you’re forgetting this year was a bad year. I really don’t think you should count on it!”

“You say that every year,” he laughed.

“Okay – but to wait for Christmas Eve? And what about gifts for the others?”

“We’ll give them all IOU’s!” He laughed. “No problem!”

“Suppose we don’t find the right puppy?”  I waited for his reply, knowing there wouldn’t be

any. His mind was already made up. Noticing the skies were graying, I said, “Perhaps Billy will

have snow for Christmas – I’ll paint his old sled.”

“And he’ll have a puppy, too! He said emphatically.

On the day before Christmas, we went over our plans again. My parents were expected in

the morning to take Billy to see the Christmas Show at Radio City Music Hall, and come back with him

on Christmas morning.  Bill said he’d call about twelve o’clock after he got paid so that I would be

ready to go out and buy the dog with him.

Christmas Eve everything worked as planned. I had loads of time to trim the tree we hid in

the closet, and search for a nice box to put the puppy in. And I found the perfect box!  One of my

hat boxes – the red one.  I removed the out-dated feather hat and measured the space under the

tree – a perfect fit! After an early lunch, I got dressed and waited for Bill’s call.

At one o’clock I began to worry; he was supposed to call me at twelve. What happened?

He always got paid at noon!  I looked at the time again, busied myself with other things, and saw that

it was now three! I got up and started to pace the floor. It wasn’t like him not to call. Five-thirty!

I was frantic! I looked out the window, and as I anticipated, it was beginning to snow. I wiped the fog

from the window.  Was that my husband?  No, it couldn’t be. I wiped the fog from the window again.

It was! He was getting out of the car carrying a large carton.

I raced to the door before he knocked. “Holy cow, you bought the dog!”

“No bonus this year, honey; they gave us a turkey.”

I wanted to cry but there wasn’t any time for tears. “We don’t have the time or the money.

We should have gone to the shelter – we shouldn’t have waited so long, the last day!”

He looked at his wrist watch. “Look, we still have time. Come on,” he said, leading me into

the bedroom.  He took the large wooden cat bank we had standing in the corner of the room, and

peeling off the masking tape underneath, shook out seventy-three dollars in bills.

“Well, son of a gun,” I remarked, completely surprised it had money in it at all!  I never heard

it jingle when I moved it!”

“I just stole from our own bank!  Let’s go!”

The night was bitter cold and the snow was coming down harder on our faces like small

chips of ice. We went to the pet store, and as soon as we entered, our spirits warmed up.

“How much is that puppy?” Bill asked, pointing to a little brown dog caged beside a white

brick house. The owner commented on his good taste while picking up the dog.  He said it was a

Shih Tzu, AKA registered, and a real healthy puppy.

Bill winked at me. “How much is he?”

“Oh, it’s a ‘she,’  and she’s two hundred fifty dollars.”

“Well, we don’t want to buy the house, too, just the pooch!” We chuckled, then gasped, as

the man said the house was two thousand dollars. He said it without humor!

“We paid less for the down payment of our house!” Bill choked.  The man said that it was a

one-of-a-kind, all hand-crafted pet house.  “Well,” Bill added, “we’re really looking for a male puppy,

say for seventy-three dollars?”

“Seventy-three dollars?” He glared at us for wasting his time. “A male hamster, maybe!”

“Maybe!” That was the last word we heard leaving the store. But after the third pet store, we

discovered our suggested price was a direct insult to the management as well as the animal. And it

approaching 8:30. The wind was whistling in all directions, blowing the snow into high drifts making it

difficult to think of anything  but bowls of hot soup, and the words, “I TOLD YOU SO!”

“Bill,” I said, shivering, “I painted the sled – let’s go home.” But he said that there was one

more store to check out — case closed! I was glad I painted Billy’s sled and toys for special effects,

something more positive, I thought.

As we suspected, the store was closed. The old man inside was putting on his coat and waved

for us to leave, but one look at our sad faces, he opened the door. It didn’t take us long to tell him

what we wanted.

The old man scratched his head and then his chin. “How about a male canary,” he said.

As we turned to leave, he called us back and told us to follow him to the rear of the store.

“My  wife feels sorry for strays, and placed this litter in the back of the store. They’re all washed, fed,

and examined – they’re all healthy puppies.”

In a playpen was a hill of squirming, cute fat puppies and underneath the pile was a squeezed-

in little white face and two little white paws trying desperately to come out from under. When he

finally stretched himself out, he practically hobbled sideways, to our delight.

“How much is the skinny drunk?” Bill asked, grinning.

“Take it, it’s yours – free,” the old man said, as he was eyeing the clock on the wall.

“Is it a male – with AKC papers?”

“Here are your papers,” the man said with a grin – handing over yesterday’s newspaper,