That Christmas Puppy Fever

It's a dreaded delirium that can infect an American family and test the limits of Dad's heart.

Sooner or later it happens, coming around with eventual, patient certainty in that great cycle of the universe, like Haley’s Comet but faster: my wife comes down with the Christmas puppy fever again.

This strange, acute fever infects the deepest inner workings of the poor woman’s mind, gripping her with its delirium and altering her perception of reality. The reality is, I argue, we already have several dogs and two children, including one kid who isn’t house broken or even certified safe and sanitary yet by the county health department. The kid who eats dirt will give the puppy worms, I argue. The last thing we need is another yapping, mess-making, furniture-destroying varmint in our tiny home.

Perhaps the infection was caused by exposure to a adorable Puppy Chow commercial during a Christmas love story on the Lifetime Network—I curse you yet again, Lifetime! You and Nicholas Sparks have ruined my life!—or, more than likely, from a cute-puppy post on Facebook. Luckily, I am immune to this fever because I have seen how it can ravage and rip apart an unsuspecting American family. I know what is destined to happen. Christmas puppy fever wears off as quickly as it attacks. We will get a puppy, and everyone will fawn over it for a couple of days, maybe a week, tops. And then everyone will get tired of having to take the puppy outside, tired of the puppy eating shoes and biting toes and stealing food, etc. And I’ll be stuck with it by New Year’s Eve. It will become Dad’s Damn Dog.

I put my foot down firmly, with full fatherly force and authority and declare: “We are absolutely not getting these kids a puppy for Christmas! And I mean it!”

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