So as you can imagine, in the hours before my 13th birthday party, I was pretty excited.
So excited in fact, that when my mom, riddled with my increasing birthday demands and the prospect of 15 preteens, sent me to the store to pick something up, I didn't even protest at all!
When I got to the store, I tied Shadow to the fence and glided into the store.
And skipped back home, drunk on birthday glee.
After arriving home and settling in in preparation for incoming guests, my mom, in between endless birthday chores, interrupted my robotic staring to ask me a question.
Mom: Hey Tess, where's the dog?
Me: I can't believe you would expect me to know such a thing on my birthday.
My originally uninterested attitude suddenly changed course as I found myself thinking. Where WAS the dog? Had my selfish birthday wants and needs distracted us from her accidental escape? Images of lost dog posters and nights filled with endless, yet unsuccessful searches plagued my mind.
Then, of course, the guests started to arrive.
While my parents tried to figure out where the dog could possibly have gone in such a short period of time, I greeted my onslaught of guests with alternating fury and dramatic self-pity.
Upon exhausting the sympathies of my friends, I was about ready to call it a day and smother my sorrows in the copious amounts of candy I had requested in simpler times, when I had a sudden and terrible realization.
I slithered away and headed to the corner store, hoping that I hadn't in fact made a huge deal about the tragedy that was my own absent mindedness.
And there she was, accompanied by a bowl of water and what appeared to be a note from it's provider.
