Allowance

When we were younger Dennis, Sarah Margaret, and I used to get a weekly allowance. Our allowance went up and we got older, so I had the lowest allowance. I was also the worst at saving money. Each Friday I got $2. I would spend Fridays trying to think about what I could buy for only $2. It never really occurred to me that I could save my $2 and have $4 the next week and then $6 the next. This was a foreign concept to me.
There are not very many useful things that can be bought with only $2. So basically, I had a ton of junk as a kid. I mostly bought whatever kids in the neighborhood were selling on my street (their old toys, pretty rocks, friendship bracelets, etc.) and pound puppies. I had a pretty large selection of pound puppies. It was awesome.
One day my whole perspective on spending my allowance was changed. Mom had taken us to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to run some errands and Dennis and I were wandering around the store. We ended up in the blanket section where we found something magical. It was the softest most wonderful blanket in the whole wide world, and there were two of them. They were chenille, which even sounded luxurious and expensive. Of course our first thought was that Mom would buy one for each of us. We were wrong. When we showed the luscious blanket to Mom she looked at the price tag and then looked at us and said, "Well, save your money." So I glanced at the price tag. The blanket cost $20! I was going to have to save my allowance for 10 whole weeks to get it. That was pretty unimagineable.
6 weeks later I had $12 and Mom was making another trip to Bed, Bath, Beyond. Dennis and I headed straight for the blanket section, hoping our blanket was on sale. Unfortunately, the chenille blankets were not on sale. However, there were some fleece blankets that were on sale for $10. I definitely had enough money for that, and they were very soft too. I made the executive decision to buy the fleece blanket and spare myself the luxury of chenille. Dennis did the same.
I guess I did not really learn a lesson about saving up my money, because I could not even wait 4 more weeks to get the blanket I really wanted, and to this day I continue to struggle with saving money. In this particular case I think I made the right decision. Even as I am writing this I am wrapped up in the most comfortable green fleece blanket; it is the same one that I bought at Bed, Bath, and Beyond that day. I bet the chenille blanket wasn't even that soft anyway.

As Long As You Love Me

The year was 1997, Sarah Margaret was in 6th grade and I was in 2nd grade. One day she came home with a note from a boy! This was actually not too unusual for Sarah Margaret. She was pretty popular at Great Bridge Middle School. This note was extra sweet though. We were sure that this boy was so dreamy and that he must have been a poet. The note said:

Sarah Margaret,
I don't care who you are,
where you're from,
what you did,
as long as you love me.
Love,
Chris

Girls, wouldn't you all love to get a note as sweet as this? Unfortunately, the magic was broken the next day. We were riding in the van listening to Z104, our favorite radio station, and all of a sudden the new Backstreet Boys song came on the radio. It sounded suspiciously like the Sarah Margaret's love letter from Chris. We could not believe our ears. Chris was not the sweetest most poetic boy at school after all, he was just some goob that listened to the radio a lot.

Margaret D'Corgi

This was the official name of my beloved corgi, Maggie. I only had her for two years, but they were two great years. When I first approached Mom and Dad and asked them if I could get a puppy they said I had to earn it. So I asked them what I could do. What Dad came up with was kind of weird, and I am still not sure how it proved that I was responsible enough to get a puppy. In order to earn my puppy I was not allowed to say any words that began with the letter "D" in front of Dad for a whole week. A week is a long time in fourth grade. Dennis became Brother and Dad became Father. I was pretty quiet at dinner that week, but I achieved my goal. Our family had only ever had labs at this point but I told Mom and Dad that I really wanted a Corgi and I had researched the breed and knew all about them and taking care of them. So we found a Corgi breeder in the Tidewater area and went to pick up Maggie.

She was basically the cutest puppy ever. She could only hold up one ear at a time so they were always lopsided. Once she was a little older my friend Kelsey and I took our dogs to Krazy K9's obedience school. Picture this- a corgi puppy and a 12 year old Basset Hound named Moe hanging out at obedience school with two 5th graders trying to control them. Maggie was full of energy and all over the place and Moe just wanted to lay around and sleep.

At the same time we had Maggie we also had two labs, Widgeon and Piper. Corgi's are herding dogs and are generally used for herding cattle. They do this by biting the ankles of the cattle and then dropping to the ground so they don't get kicked. Maggie spent many of her afternoons herding Widgeon and Piper across the yard. She would be running behind them biting their ankles all day long.

When I had Maggie I was in the peak of my awkward weird stage and we had just moved to Richmond where I didn't have many friends. I would always tell people that Maggie was my best friend, which is kind of pathetic. If Sarah Margaret and Dennis were ignoring me or teasing me I would go into the garage and curl up in the dog house with Maggie until I calmed down. Yes, I know that this is not normal.

In the end, Dad decided that Maggie barked too much and that she was annoying our other dogs too much. I had to give her away. On the bright side, I made real life human friends in my class after that. I guess there is always a silver lining.