i love my dog jake and here's why:

when we first brought him home from the humane society, we were so excited. here was a Constant Companion, a creature to love us unconditionally, caring not about whether we put the milk container back in the fridge when it was empty, or forgot to pay the water bill for three months. to be loyal, and come when we called his name. it was all so very american dreamy that in retrospect it sort of makes me gag. but that is neither here nor there. we loved him, robert and i, and we found it difficult to leave the house at all, for fear we would miss something cute that jake might do. in one extreme instance of this overprotective maternal manifestation, i actually left my little sister at the emergency room all by herself, in pain, holding a soggy washcloth on the edge of her eye, where she had developed an unfortunate wind blister, causing her so much distress that she ended up having me take her to the er, as i've said, and then after almost an hour, i lept up when i realized that the puppy had been by himself for all that time, and was probably dying of loneliness right then and there, and i left kristi and rushed home and bundled jake into my arms, all squirmy and not the least bit upset at all, really.