Well I Guess This is Growing Up
Growing up, TV shows like The Wonder Years or movies like The Natural led me to believe that every epiphany or climactic realization in my life would come at equally cinematic moments, drenched in sepia tones with oboes and clarinets playing in the background, or maybe with fireworks and light standards exploding overhead. “And that was when I realized I should shave my head,” I’d tell Carter someday, describing the touching moment when I realized I was losing the fight with male pattern baldness. Me holding a mirror looking at the back of my head, a tear rolls down my cheek. I reach for the clippers. Cue the Coldplay song.
Things don’t happen this way for me though. I just seem to realize things on the fly, after the fact or when a million other things are going on. I didn’t realize I wanted to marry Debbie the second we met, or during our first kiss (I was too drunk for that I’m afraid–sorry Debbie). No, I realized I wanted to marry Debbie when she looked at me a certain way walking down the street one day, not a particularly special moment, it just hit me then. I didn’t decide I wanted to quit my career in IT and go back to school when I was visiting the ol’ alma mater. I think that hit me in the back of a taxi on the way to a theme park in Seoul, South Korea. And watching Carter being born didn’t suddenly make me feel old and paternal. That realization didn’t dawn on me until I thought my dog was going to die.
We were in Greensburg, Indiana for my friend Kyle’s wedding, enjoying the reception. Carter had thrown all the catered food onto the floor that he was going to for the evening, and was hitting his wall. Debbie was going to take him back to hotel, and I was planning to stay out and enjoy the rest of the night with my friends. I helped Debbie out the car, carrying her purse while she carried Carter and his gear, and I felt her phone vibrating inside. Once we got Carter strapped in and ready to go, she checked her phone and saw a missed call from the last place we expected to hear from, the kennel where Bootsy was staying for the weekend.
With our first dog, Cleo, I would have expected a call. She’d bitten one of the workers, destroyed her crate, eaten one of the smaller dogs. But Bootsy is pretty much their favorite guest, and the only thing I could think that had happened, after last week’s chair drag race, is that he’d been startled by his food dish and wouldn’t eat. But Bootsy is full of surprises, and this time we thought he’d pulled his last stunt.
Debbie called back and the manager of the kennel told her Bootsy had been vomiting, panting and salivating heavily, and his stomach was distended. He was afraid it was bloat, a potentially fatal condition in which a dog’s intestines are blocked and his stomach fills up with gas. They were taking him to emergency vet, and told us they’d call back with updates.
Here I was, 200 miles away from home thinking Bootsy was close to death, and suddenly I realized I was a parent. Nothing I’d done up to this point in my life, none of the Hallmark moments like graduating from college, getting married, buying a house, or having a child had made me think about myself as a real adult, like I’d just been play acting in Grown Up Land until then. But feeling powerless to help Bootsy–my dog mind you, not even my human child–finally made me feel like a grown up. I’d just stood up in my fraternity brother’s wedding, most of my college friends were inside celebrating, and all I wanted to do was go back to the hotel, watch Carter sleep, and wait by the phone for news about my dog.
Bootsy is better now. I cancelled a trip to Poseyville to visit my parents and do research for my thesis right after the wedding so I could come back home to make sure. He’s been living the high life too: hamburger for dinner, extra belly rubs, and more attention from me and Debbie than he’s had since Carter was born, making me think he had this whole stunt planned. That big kid just horsing around in Grown Up Land would have felt silly for canceling an important trip because my dog basically had bad gas, but now I don’t care. It’s what any parent would have done.
