Sitting

I had a houseguest briefly over the weekend. My houseguest was small, troublesome, very fluffy, and given to inappropriate acts of biting.


Yes, it was Cindy Sheehan. No, wait, hang on... that was the previous weekend. This weekend was my mother's golden retriever puppy. He's too young to be left on his own, so my parents left him with me while they went to a wedding.


They say that you can tell how a person will deal with parenthood by looking at the way they deal with puppies, and if that's true, then it's probably a good thing I don't have children. I gather children thrive on stability, not on being referred to as "my widdle furry bumble-puppy" one minute and being shouted at for headbutting the screen door the next.


There are many other important differences between babies and puppies:


1) People get all angsty when you make a baby sleep in a cardboard box in the laundry.

2) Babies can't be relied upon to kill and eat annoying crickets.

3) Babies are unlikely to do well after drinking water from the stagnant goldfish pond in the back yard.

4) The police take a dim view of allowing a baby to be transported in the back of a ute.

5) You can't tie a baby to a post in the back yard and pop down to the shops for half an hour.

6) Babies are generally allowed on the furniture.

7) Few babies thrive on a diet of water and kibble (and crickets).

8) A baby is unlikely to come when called.

9) Nor are they much good at fetching.

10) Babies are utterly hopeless at tail-wagging... unless they come from rural Tasmania, I guess.


Of course there are some similiarities; both fart with alacrity, both lick interesting substances off the kitchen floor, and neither shows much interest in Uncle Blandwagon's MST3K collection, except to bite the DVD covers. Maybe I should just stick to crickets.