My Secret Shame

I bought a dress for my little dog Abby.

I've never bought clothes for a pet before. I've always thought it was a little silly. One time I had to go to my divorce attorney's office, and she had her chihuahua with her, and he was dressed in a sailor suit. She said that since her kids were grown and hadn't given her any grandchildren yet, she dressed up her dog. Cute, but not for me.

When I was a kid, we got a poodle & yorkie mix, Fifi, while my dad's sub was away on WestPac. He warmed up to her when he got home. Fifi grew up in San Diego and then moved to Montana with us, where she learned about snow for the first time. Little snowballs stuck to the hair on her feet, and she shivered. It was so sad.

So my sister bought Fifi a set of doggie snow boots for Christmas, and my grandmother accidentally shrank her dog's sweater, so she gave it to Fifi. My dad rigged up string to hold the snow boots on like idiot mittens, because Fifi hated the boots and would kick them off. The sweater kept the strings in place, and we'd let her outside all decked out for snow. For fun, one of us would put her at the end of the driveway and the others would be by the door, and we'd call her. She'd run as fast as she could, flicking all four feet to try to get the snow boots off, and we'd just about roll on the ground laughing at how funny she looked.

That's an appropriate use for dog clothes. Snow protection.

But a while ago, I was at Target and I noticed they had started to carry dog clothes. Of course, that sort of thing was for people like my divorce attorney, people with silly dogs and too much time and money on their hands. Certainly not for me. Definitely not for my little Abby.

But then I saw the brocade dress. They had it in red with black accents and black with red accents. I stopped and looked at it, not believing I could be doing such a thing. I decided the black one would look better on Abby, because she has the black hair on her back. And she'd be a size Small, not X-Small. But then I moved on, because I'm more sensible than that.

The next time I went to Target, I saw them again. They have them hanging right by the main aisle, so it's not like I went looking for them. Yes, they had the black one in the Small size. No, I didn't buy it.

At our department Holiday Potluck, I won a $20 gift card to Target, so I had to go back. With a cold coming on, I needed more Sudafed and cough medicine, so I decided to use the gift card to stock up. But you have to pass the pet supplies to get to the medicine. And the dress was still there, and it would look so cute on Abby, and the gift card was in my wallet. I took the dress off the peg and put it in my basket.

Really, it's only for special occasions, like Christmas. And it's only the one dress.

Really.