Dogs and Snakes and Stuff

The kid and I volunteered at a huge pet expo on Saturday. She helped out in the reptile education area while I hung out in the German Shepherd rescue booth. I am sure I was not very helpful. I'm not what you'd call a stellar salesperson. I did manage to sell a few doggie bandanas, but only because people thrust money into my hand and basically insisted that I give them a bandana in exchange. I tried not to get into too much trouble when it came to shopping at some of the other vendor booths. I bought some dog treats for Gretchen and Agent (my foster dog). I also bought a tee shirt to support the K9 program through one of the local police departments. Oh, and I bought a $700 pretzel when my kid wanted a snack.

She and I actually drove down the night before and got a hotel room. The expo was held a couple hours away from our house. I knew the kid would want to go swimming, so that's what we did. Well, she swam while I drank Merlot out of a plastic cup because your no-glass-by-the-pool policy can't stop me, Comfort Suites!  At 11 p.m., she was still awake and was showing no sign of pooping out. I knew we had to get up fairly early, so eventually I just pulled the plug and forced the child to go to sleep. As I'm sure I could have predicted, she was very slow-moving the next morning.

Getting her major award.
I had told her I had a surprise for her, and the not knowing was all but killing her. I started to realize that she thought she might be getting a snake or a crested gecko. That may happen eventually, but not anytime soon. So, I gave up and told her what the surprise was. She was selected to receive a Junior Heroes for Animals Award. Sure, I'm the one who nominated her and sure, maybe they gave the award to every kid who was nominated, but still, I thought it was a nice little recognition for her. The award was given to her on Saturday afternoon at the expo. I will say that she was the only kid who accepted the award with a snake wrapped around her hand. She had to leave her post in the reptile area so she brought her little friend along. The expo was so crowded (12,000 people passed through) that it was hard to get from one part of the building to another. The crowd sure parts when people see a snake coming through, though.

All in all, it was a good day.  I did have a rough moment when I spotted some cushioned dog beds at one of the booths.  "Oh, Giddy would love one of those," I thought.  And then I remembered. Waaaah!  The kid was unhappy when I made her leave her post at 2:15 (we had been there for over five hours at that point), but my feet were killing me.

On our way back home, we stopped at Trader Joe's for some goodies. We wandered the store separately (they have all sorts of good vegan stuff there) and then checked out. As we were pulling onto the highway, Her Highness threw a fit because . . . wait for it . . . she had forgotten to pick up a box of Snickerdoodles. That, my friends, is how you know you're tween did not get enough sleep and that she definitely should have gone to sleep when you told her to.



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