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What Shane Wants

When I was still on many Yahoogroups, regularly joining and then leaving soon after, one person kept sending this stuff to her chat lists, and every list I left, she kept inviting me to new ones. Finally she gave up. and I had said repeatedly how much I disliked meme posts. I even said as much in those profile surveys that were mandatory to fill out there.

Well, I didn't get around to mangling it, so must've kept it in the files to await a that in the future.

So now, here goes.

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🆔From: "Nicola" To: "Email" EMailPalsAroundTheWorld@yahoogroups.com; "Females" PenPalsForLadies@yahoogroups.com; "Snailmail" SnailMailPalsAroundTheWorld@yahoogroups.com Subject: [EMailPalsAroundTheWorld] *The Potato Puppy*Date: July 12, 2006 7:48 AM

👩‍🍳Meme: My four-year-old son, Shane, had been asking for a puppy for over a month but his Daddy kept saying, "No dogs! A dog will dig up the garden and chase the ducks and kill our rabbits. No dog, and that's final!"

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, brother, I can just see where this is going. Father doesn't want a dog because at some point in his life, probably his childhood, his pet dog died and it scarred him for life, now he's been so incredibly damaged by it that he wants absolutely nothing to do with dogs. Oh, please! Seen this so many times in cheesy dog story TV shows and movies.

And I'm not a dog person. I grew up with dogs my whole life and much prefer rabbits, chinchillas, and cats - and I would love a duck!

So assuming these people live on a farm or ranch if they have ducks, rabbits and farm cats, why don't they already have a farm dog? that doesn't make much sense. Seriously, every farm I ever remember visiting, had at least one dog.

👩‍🍳Meme: Each night Shane prayed for a puppy,

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: *Rolling eyes* Don't bring prayer into this!

👩‍🍳Meme: and each morning he was disappointed when there was no puppy waiting outside.

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah, blah blah blah. Everybody eventually learns that God isn't going to just give you everything you want *plunk* you have to wait and work for it, and sometimes it takes years of waiting and working before you finally get it.

👩‍🍳Meme: I was peeling potatoes for dinner,

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: wow! The world can go on spinning now that you've said you peel potatoes for dinner. Whatever would we all have done without that tidbit?

👩‍🍳Meme: and he was sitting on the floor at my feet asking for the thousandth time, "Why won't Daddy let me have a puppy?"

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah, I get it, kid and dad are totally opposition on that. I don't care.

👩‍🍳Meme: "Because they are a lot of trouble. Don't cry. Maybe Daddy will change his mind someday," I encouraged him.

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: She's right, they are a lot of trouble, at least if you're not much of a dog person. If you love dogs, then all the trouble is worth it.

👩‍🍳Meme: "No, he won't and I'll never have a puppy in a million years," Shane wailed.

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Spoken like a typical overly dramatic 4-year-old kid. He doesn't realize nobody gets to a million years old. Though if this kid is carrying on that badly he's a lot more obsessed than normal. He just sits on the flor and cries out of the blue because he wants a puppy so bad, and I presume no one has taken him to see any dogs lately. The crying would make more sense if they had, because then the desire would be renewed by the recent contact with the dogs. This kid is showing signs of some kind of - I dunno what.

👩‍🍳Meme: I looked into his dirty, tear-streaked face. How could we deny him his one wish? So I said the words that were first spoken by Eve, "I know a way to make Daddy change his mind."

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Eve who? Not Eve from the Bible, I really don't think or recall her ever having said such thing.

👩‍🍳Meme: "Really?" Shane wiped away his tears and sniffed.

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, can it already, I get it, I get it. The kid cried. I get it already. are you going to run on about how each of his precious sad little tears were molecular wonders glistening like dew drops as they dried on his skin too? So he cried. I didn't. Move on.

👩‍🍳Meme: I handed him a potato.

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: and now you're going to keep on about how he helped you peel the potatoes and during this dull conversation you're about to describe, how the potato skins fell neatly on the cupboard or something…

👩‍🍳Meme: "Take this and carry it with you until it turns into a puppy," I whispered. "Never let it out of your sight for one minute. Keep it with you all the time, and on the third day, tie a string around it and drag it around the yard and see what happens!"

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Three days toting around some potato? No kid is going to fall for that. Not when his desire for a puppy is this keen. He wants one now, not hatched from a potato three days from now. Besides, he'll only learn that puppies don't come from potatoes. If he somehow gets attached to that potato like the girl in that lame ABC After School special about the great egg experiment, what will he eventually end up with? A stinking rotten potato.

You plant and take care of a garden and it gives you stuff to eat. Save the nurturing stuff for animals and people.

👩‍🍳Meme: Shane grabbed the potato with both hands. "Mama, how do you make a potato into a puppy?" He turned it over and over in his little hands.

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Bleck! I knew that was coming.

The answer, shane, is, you don't.

👩‍🍳Meme: "Shh! It's a secret!" I whispered and sent him on his way. "Lord, you know what a woman must do to keep peace in her home!" I prayed.

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Facepalm* This is dreadful!

Well that might work on a four-year-old, but it won't cut the mustard when the boy gets older and wiser.

👩‍🍳Meme: Shane faithfully carried his potato around for two days, he slept with it, bathed with it and talked to it.

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Bleckity bleck bleck! It's the great egg experiment story all over again, only this time with a potato and a little boy instead of a teenaged girl and an egg.

👩‍🍳Meme: On the third day I said to my husband, "We really should get a pet for Shane."

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: And here's where the big ol' tear-jerking heart-to-heart reveal of a puppy sob story from the man is about to spill out. Oh, he'll start out being big and tough, but eventually it will end with every last one of the cast of this mess in some kind of major tears, and I'll remain wanting to throw something.

👩‍🍳Meme: "What makes you think he needs a pet?" my husband leaned against the doorway.

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: The kid is so obsessed that he just up and cries, throwing himself down on the floor at his mother's feet, wailing for a puppy, and you really can't be THIS clued out!

👩‍🍳Meme: "Well, he's been carrying a potato around with him for days. He calls it Wally and says it is his pet. He sleeps with it on his pillow and right now he has a string tied to it and he's dragging it around the yard," I said

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: You already explained that patheticness to me in the above. who needs a rehash of it word for word and then with names added in for embellishment? I don't care what you told your husband okay? either way, I'm pretty sure "Wally" is no longer edible by now.

👩‍🍳Meme: "A potato?" my husband asked and looked out the window and watched Shane taking his potato for a walk.

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: And the plot stalled.

👩‍🍳Meme: "It will break his heart when the potato gets mushy and rots," I said and started getting out food for lunch, "Besides, every time I try to peel potatoes for dinner, Shane cries because he says I'm killing Wally's family.

Capri : Oh, swell, you sure did a heck of a bang-up job with this experiment, now you got your kid crying over potatoes! That boy was emotionally unbalanced to begin with and you've gone and made him even worse, way to go, mom of the year!

👩‍🍳Meme: "A potato?" my husband asked, "My son has a pet potato?"

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Didn't you just establish that? Sheesh!

👩‍🍳Meme: "Well," I said shrugging, "you said he couldn't have a puppy. He was so disappointed, in his mind, he decided he had to have a pet..."

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Already been through that. already hashed through that. and didn't I say… - oh, forget it!

👩‍🍳Meme: "That's crazy!" my husband said.

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: I could'a told you that… *Rolling eyes*

👩‍🍳Meme: "Maybe you're right, but explain to me why he is dragging that potato around the yard on a string," I said.

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Lady, that was YOUR idea! you told your kid to do that. you have set him up for an even bigger disappointment. he'll learn not to trust your advice, and that his efforts at trying to achieve his dreams won't pay off. And don't blame me if Shane turns into a drug addict when he grows up. He sure shows signs of an obsessed, addictive personality now as it is.

👩‍🍳Meme: My husband watched our son for a few more minutes. "I'll bring home a puppy tonight, I'll stop by the animal shelter after work. I guess a puppy can't be that much trouble," he sighed, "It's better than a potato."

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: *Rolling eyes* Animal welfare glurge. of course, they'd promote getting some flea-bitten pound dog with bad behaviour issues instead of getting one from a home that needs to place their dog with some other home because of allergies or having to move etc. or heaven forbid this family get a pup from a breeder, that would be like so totally evil - give me a break!

👩‍🍳Meme: That night Shane's Daddy brought home a wiggling puppy and a pregnant white cat that he took pity on while he was at the shelter.

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: I thought the animal pounds were supposed to be totally against breeding animals so how did this cat end up making out with some tom over there? No, you're not moving me to anything but annoyance with this "Get a 'companion animal' from a 'shelter' instead of a breeder!" propaganda!

👩‍🍳Meme: Everyone was happy. My husband thought he'd saved his son from a nervous breakdown. Shane had a puppy, a cat and five kittens and believed his Mother had magic powers that could change a potato into a puppy. And I was happy because I got my potato back and cooked it for dinner.

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Ewwwww! Yeah, I won't be coming over to your place for dinner any time soon.

Shane will grow up and realize the truth eventually. But your husband is right, he did save Shane from a nervous breakdown. You didn't. and possibly, Shane could learn to be a real spoiled brat, too.

👩‍🍳Meme: Everything was perfect until one evening when I was cooking dinner, Shane tugged on my dress and asked, "Mama, do you think I could have a pony for my birthday?"

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: What did I tell ya? Brat! Now, he'll throw himself on the floor and carry on until you get him a turnip, lather, rinse, repeat, until hubby caves in and gets him a horse.

Same deal whenever little Shaney wants something. Even just a little bit. No longer will he endure the pain of yearning for something, he'll just had to want something a tiny little bit, and he and you will know just what to do to get Daddy buying him the moon.

👩‍🍳Meme: I looked into his sweet little face

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Sweet little face my foot! I want to slap this kid right about now.

👩‍🍳Meme: and said, "Well, first we have to take a watermelon..."

🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: Okay, so I picked the wrong plant, my bad. Watermelon. Okay. I stand corrected. So what's he gonna do now? Put a saddle and bridle on a melon and try to ride it?

And what next? He gonna get the horse from a "horse rescue" or from a real ranch/farm?

👩‍🍳Meme: ~Author Unknown~

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🧝‍♀️Ocean Elf: figures.

Well, at least my prediction about the doggy sob story happening to the husband in his childhood was wrong! Hurray!

But really. I can just see this getting worse as Shane gets older. He never learns that live animals don't come from carrying fruit and vegetables around. So when he wants a cow, he'll carry a pumpkin around for days. Whatever will he do when he gets tired of just having pets and wants a girlfriend? Carry an eggplant?

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