Can we get an excerpt of "The Little Puppy that Ate Dirt" sometime? Puhlease??

I dared Boston Rob to answer a few questions in his blog, and he took me up on the challenge. Here they are:

1. If you got commissioned to write a Children’s Book, what would it be about?

2. How come your blogs are so short? You only work like four hours a day. Is your wiffle ball schedule really that demanding?

3. Sometime about six months ago you seemed to get really into Christianity. What happened?

4. This question was forwarded to me from Adam Lambert. Have you ever been naked in public? What’s the story?

5. Have you ever been really scared by a movie? If so, did you feel like a little girl?

6. How would you go about addressing the issue of global climate change? Any thoughts?

Rob's a great guy. I'm gonna stand beside him on the first one. So in answer to Amy's request, I hereby present to you a children's story I wrote while Wifey and I were courting.




The Little Puppy Who Ate Dirt
Written September 13, 2006

There once was a very sad little puppy who only ate dirt. He ate dirt for breakfast and for lunch and for dinner, and he never had dessert, unless it was dirt. He didn't even have a name!

Every morning the old man that owned him would put more dirt in his puppy dish, and every night the old man would scold him for spilling dirt on the floor. "You are a bad puppy!" the old man said. "For your punishment, tomorrow you will only eat dirt!"

The little puppy couldn't help it. He tried to eat the dirt, but sometimes he would start coughing and hacking, and sometimes he would throw up all over the floor. Little puppies should never eat dirt. Neither should you.

One day the old man didn't come home from work. The little puppy waited and waited, but he never came. He was all alone.

The next day, people came. They were all dressed in black, and some of them were crying. But most of them weren't.

"I'll take the couch with me," said a man with a big mustache. "You can have the coffee table, Wilma."

"Can I take the dishes? He won't be needing them anymore," said a woman with a big hat.

Then the man with the mustache noticed the little puppy. "Will you look at that filthy thing?!" he screamed.

"What are we going to do with him?" asked the woman with the big hat. "I'M certainly not taking him home!"

"Neither am I!" said the man with the mustache. And you will not believe what he did next!

The man with the mustache picked up the little puppy, put him out on the front porch, and yelled at him. "Good bye and good riddance, you filthy little puppy!" And then he slammed the door.

The little puppy yipped and scratched at the door. He barked and he whined and he even howled, but nobody came. So he stepped off the front porch and onto the lawn, and he buried his face in the ground for his evening meal. He ate dirt for supper, and he ate dirt for dessert too.

What's a little puppy to do? If he were a little boy or a little girl, he could ask a police officer for help, or a teacher, or even a neighbor, if he knew them very well. But the little puppy didn't have any friends at all. And even the smartest police officers usually can't understand what puppies are trying to tell them.

So the little puppy started walking. He didn't know where he was going, and it was getting dark. And then it started to rain.

Rain fell on his little puppy head, and ran into his little puppy eyes, and dripped off his floppy little puppy ears. And the little puppy had never been so sad. He walked and he walked until he couldn't walk anymore. And then he sat down in the mud and howled.

Just then he heard a voice. The little puppy looked up and saw a light coming from a house. On the front porch was a little boy in flannel pajamas, with scruffy red hair and freckles all over his face. "Mommy!" he yelled. "Come here! Hurry!"

The Mommy came out to the front porch and stood there with her little boy. "Mommy, look! A puppy! He looks lost," said the boy.

The Mommy looked at the wet little puppy, and the little puppy looked back with sad, sad eyes. "He must belong to someone," she told her son.

"No mommy, look! He's all covered in mud, and he doesn't even have a collar! Please, can we keep him? PLEEEEEEEEEEASE?!!!"

The Mommy looked at the little puppy, and she looked at the little boy, and then something wonderful happened. Something happened that was more wonderful than anything that had ever happened to the puppy.

She smiled. And she ruffled the little boy's hair, like only Mommies know how to do, and she hugged him. "Let's bring him inside, and we'll get him cleaned up."

The little boy's mouth dropped open from surprise, or maybe from excitement, or maybe for both reasons. "Really, Mommy? Really?!"

They brought the little puppy inside and washed him up in the bathtub. He got mud all over the bathroom, but nobody really cared. Would you?

That night they fed the little puppy a hot dog, and gave him cool water to drink out of a cereal bowl. He had never tasted anything so good!

The little puppy never ate dirt again. And they all lived happily ever after. Especially the little puppy.

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Copyright 2006

-Solid