Y'all, I almost killed a puppy.

I don't know why I haven't been blogging much lately. I think this is the longest I have gone without writing anything since I started the blog in 2007. Lack of motivation, perhaps. I don't know.

But I can't think of a better way of breaking my silence than regaling you all with a tale of how I almost broke the neck of a puppy. Seriously.

My parents were in town last week and we were out and about with the kids. I needed to get some medicine for our golden lab, Meg, so we stopped in one of those terrible pet stores that supports puppy mills.

***Please support humane shelters when buying a dog. Please? Off my soap box now***

Anyway, the puppies were adorable and cute and my kids wanted to pet one. So did I. I tried to play all cool like it was my hyper 3 year old who wanted to hold the adorable ball of fluff, but it was really the hyper 32 year old who wanted to play with the cuddly thing.

They let us in this little cubicle and told me that I had to sit down to hold the puppy and that we weren't supposed to stand up with the puppies. They were too wriggly. I scoffed at them. I'm not a child. I am a puppy lovin' adult who is fully capable of standing while holding a small dog. So I defied them. I stood up to adjust my skirt. And guess what? I DROPPED THE PUPPY!

Okay, so really, the puppy jumped out of my arms. That's what I am telling myself anyway. But that adorable tiny 3lb little thing fell 5 feet to the ground. And it laid there and let out a howl like I have never heard. People all across the store stopped. Three store employees rushed in my cubicle and looked at me like the murderer that I was. Two vet technicians ran out from the back. I wanted to crawl in a hole and cower.

The puppy wouldn't stop yelping. Good, it wasn't dead. But it wouldn't move either. Crap, I broke it. If you break a puppy, do you have to buy it? I was wondering how I was going to bring home a deformed puppy to Rob and explain what I had done.

Finally, after what seemed like an hour, they said that the puppy was fine. That it was bruised and and banged up a bit in the mouth, but okay. I felt AWFUL! In fact, that is the understatement of the year. I was shaking. I had tears in my eyes. Who in the world breaks a puppy but me? I mean seriously? What grown adult drops a puppy? Me! That's who.

Two final notes to end this tragic tale.

1. That night when saying her prayers before bed, Bennett prayed, "Dear God. Please be with the puppy that my Mommy dropped and broke." Great.

2. I snuck into the pet store a few days later. I wore a baseball cap and sweats. I needed to go incognito in case there were wanted posters of me posted all over the dog cages. Nobody recognized me and called the authorities fortunately. But I did find my little dog. And he seemed okay. Emotionally scarred perhaps, but he was playing with his friends.

I felt a tiny bit better. Just a tiny bit.