In addition to his never waning interest in all things Star Wars and his desire to make his own Star Wars movie, my six year old son, Snags, has recently decided that he wants to be like Adam in the movie Snow Buddies, and he wants to race his own dog sled team. Only, we don’t have a dog sled team.
And so every night he prays to God to send him six dogs for a dog sled team. Snags will build the sled himself. And then he will enter a dog sled race. In Alaska.
Today he came to me with a large manila envelope and on the front he had written in fat black sharpie, “Snag’s DOG SEDinG MUNee” and below that he had drawn a picture of the dog sled he will build. He asked that any money I give him be in EVEN amounts (hello grandparents, take note!) so that he can split the funds between his savings for “GrBl MUNee” (Gerbil Money) and “DOG SEDinG MUNee”. The envelope for the dog sledding fund is “in case God doesn’t give me the six dogs that I’ve been praying for.”
And I think, yes, son, it’s always good to have a contingency plan.
Dear God, I’m not sure what you do up in heaven all day, but I am sure you are busy. If you sneak any time away from your job to read blogs, read this: DO NOT SEND SNAGS SIX DOGS! At least not until he is fully grown and living on his own or with a wife in ALASKA. I am struggling with the one dog we have and cannot take care of six more. Snags cannot clean up his own LEGOs, and so I have serious doubts about whether he would be capable of scooping up the poop made by six dogs roaming my back yard. Er… seven, if you count the dog we already have. So please, when you hear his cute little voice at night coming to you over the prayer hotline, as soon as he gets to the word “dogs,” just start humming to yourself or something, like, “la, la, la, I can’t HEAR YOU!” You can get back to what he is saying when he says please and thank you and Amen. Or um, if he says something like “Please let my mom win one-hundred million dollars in the lottery.” That would be a good prayer to answer. A request for six dogs, not so much.
On the gerbil front, well, Snags has come up with a list of possible names for this gerbil he wants. And wouldn’t you know it, all of the names are names of the dogs that appear in the movie Snow Buddies. Lucky for me, gerbils are apparently harder to come by than dogs sent straight down from God in heaven for a dog sled team, and none of the pet stores near us happen to have any gerbils in stock right now. Sad, isn’t it?
Actually, I thought Snags was going to be really upset over the apparent lack of gerbils, especially since he’s worked so hard to save up his money to buy one, cage, food and all. For weeks now, every time I have run an errand I make a quick stop at the nearest pet store to see if they’ve gotten any gerbils in yet, and so far, no luck. But it seems as if it might not matter anymore.
Because Snags recently got a second manila envelope and on the front he wrote “Snags loG KABiN MUNee” and he drew a picture of the log cabin that he wants to build in Alaska on the front of it. I believe this is where he plans to live with his dogs when he races with them up there in the cold North. After he made this, he took all of the cash in his “GrBl MUNee” fund out of its specially designed envelope and put it into his “loG KABiN” fund. All $33.00 of it.
When I found the “GrBl MUNee” envelope lying empty on the kitchen table, I rather discreetly threw it away. I’m hoping that without the envelope to remind him, Snags will forget that he ever wanted a gerbil in the first place. And that would be fine with me, because even though they are smaller and perhaps less work than six additional dogs would be, I don’t really want the job of scooping up Gerbil poop either.
Running With Books 