By Laurie Yarnell of Embedded in the 'Burbs on iVillage.com
I pick up my Freshman, home for spring break, from the train station. His greeting? “Where’s the dog?”
Oops.
My bad. “The dog” (in this case, our yellow Lab, Maggie; our other dog
gets carsick) was a permanent fixture in the car as I schlepped my
children through their suburban childhood. Indeed, it was the rare
vehicle on the carpool pick-up line that didn’t sport its own panting
pet slobbering out the back window.
In my case, it started out innocently enough. The dog would hurl
herself at the car and barrel her way past me to get into the back seat
when I would try to leave the house. It was easier not to wrestle 85
pounds of panting Lab flesh, so pretty soon, Maggie became my de facto
permanent passenger/carpooling companion. (She was good company, too.
Not once did she hiss at me not to sing along to the radio 'cause I was
embarrassing her in front of her friends.)
Of
course, the Freshman’s been driving himself around for quite awhile
now. And because my boss frowns on my showing up with a colleague, no
matter how cute, who spends her day napping on the floor and not, say,
doing any work, I had gotten out of the habit of taking Maggie with me
every time I got into the car. But no sooner had my son deposited his
dirty laundry at our house, he was out again, to cruise around his old
stomping grounds. And yep, you-know-who was riding shotgun.