I'm discovering that I have a touch of the sadist in me. After several weeks, I finally have the proper size Halti Headcollar for Donna the dog.

I bought our first headcollar in October. Although we had the dog with us at the time of the purchase, we still managed to go home with the wrong size collar, in the right size package. With the illness that was swarming around our house, it took me two weeks to get back out to the store. I exchanged it for the right size collar, in the right size box, but when we got it home, we discovered that the part that buckles had been sliced off, probably by someone who was trying to detach the security pin thing.

Which hadn't worked, because the pin was still in place, but the headcollar was ruined. Yeah. Great.

More illness. More delays in returning. Receipt spontaneously implodes. Dog still running amuck. Kids begin referring to dog as "freaking dog" which gives me new motivation to get freaking dog under control, as well as my language.

Finally, yesterday was The Day. We needed dog food, and we had 500 other errands to run. I decided to suck it up and go back, again. This time I would leave with the right collar for the freaking dog, or I would die trying. With the kids in tow, we marched into the store.

"Mommy, I want a parakeet!"
"Mommy, I want a lizard!"
"Fish! Fish!"
"Oooh, GERBILS"
(yes, gerbils are just fantastic, aren't they. WHATEVER!)

I grabbed the dog food we needed, and marched the kids to the halter aisle. We grabbed three of the proper size, and opened all of them to inspect. Two of the boxes had the wrong size in them, but we found one in the right size, that hadn't been mutilated.

At that moment, a ray of light shone down on the Circus family, as we sang a song of thanksgiving, and did a little jig. Then we hauled ass to the cash register, where we did the switcheroo with no problems, despite the lack of receipt. (The cashier had obviously seen this issue before.) As we prepared to make our exit, I noticed that the baby was missing one of her shoes.

After a high speed retracing of steps, complete with whining for other pets and attempted break and run stunts, I left my phone number with the cashier, and made a break for it.

Back at home, I hooked the dog in to the headcollar and pranced around the yard. The dog keeps giving me these looks. Oh, I'm such a mean mommy. But WHATEVAH, because she can't pull, and she is totally docile.

Bwahahahahahaha! I so am inventing these for the kids.