A Dogs Life, when is enough enough?

Enough.

I've been thinking this morning about enough, and how we, as a society, might need to redefine that word because for some reason it seems an impossible goal to achieve.

I look at my dogs and I envy them because they seem to have enough, but then when I think back of all the dogs I've ever had, and I realize they have always had enough.

When I was a boy we were very poor. Not poor like didn't have the money to pay the cable bill poor, but poor like, no cable, electricity getting turned off, neighbors dropping off groceries on our porch, always going to a neighbor’s house for an after school snack, not even being asked to fill out the form for free lunches, getting immunization shots for free from the health department, prone to shoplifting, would do any chore for anyone for a dollar, nothing new ever, school shopping at the salvation army, five kids sleeping on a full sized mattress on the floor of an upstairs bedroom, without sheets, huddled in blankets, water frozen in the toilet on extra cold mornings, holes in the bathroom floor from wood rot, scratch the registration sticker off someone else’s license plate, and glue it to your own, often ate fried potatoes for dinner, took a generic bag of potato chips for the potluck at the church, Kool-Aid was a rare and wonderful treat, 3 channels on the black and white TV, antenna wrapped in aluminum foil, moved and moved and moved again, wore work boots, or bare feet at gym class, never joined a sports team, hunted when we could and ate every damn thing we killed, raised rabbits to eat and fed them by pulling weeds to put in their cage, our dogs never had shots, or flea medicine, or heart worm treatment, hair-cuts at home, lunch at school, supper at home, no breakfast, never used deodorant until we could buy it for ourselves, built imaginary forts in the wind break, and entertained ourselves with sticks, stones, ponds, and imagination poor.

But, you know what?

That old dog was happy. He met our school bus, he ate our leftovers, he slept on the mattress with us, he played with us, he licked us, allowed us to wipe our dirty hands on him, or cry on him, he didn’t even take it personal when he was hungry or we scolded him. He just had enough.

Now it’s a million years later. We live in a beautiful condo in one of the world’s greatest cities, we have to be careful to not over eat, I can’t remember the last time I was actually hungry, our children are educated and successful. Marie shops at thrift shops for fun. I drive a scooter worth about 5k dollars, when we need a car we go rent a brand new one, when we need clothes we simply go get them, we prefer Tilleys over WalMart, we eat meat in 98% of our meals, we sometimes order Pizza and have it delivered, I’ve eaten so much I’m fat, I get annoyed if I don’t have at least 2 hard liquors, and mixers in the house. The boys eat 3 meals a day. Our cable and internet bill are more than our rent was as a kid. I think we paid about 40 dollars for the wrought iron and stainless steel dog dishes that our dogs mostly ignore for scraps off of our plates. Sometimes I get stressed because we don’t enough snack foods around the house, 2 computers, 3 smart phones, a Google TV, my sons High School has a pool, we have good health insurance, we carry about 300k dollars in life insurance, in case one of us passes, and the Mrs. makes a very comfortable living.

And you know what?

The dogs are happy, they have more than enough.

But me?

Well I really want a 5 bedroom 3 bath house, and a new Honda Ridgeline. I really need a Vacation with just the Mrs., about 4-5 days in a nice hotel in Vegas would do the trick, maybe take in a show. I would also like to only drink top shelf booze. Greg thinks he needs new clothes, Marie would like some new boots, I wouldn’t mind spending a couple of hundred on some new clothes myself. I would like to be able to buy new cars for our 20 something daughters. I worry about them breaking down and that would give them a little less to worry about. Our air-conditioning unit is out dated. I made a promise to a friend and then had to wait until next payday to do it. I would like to put down real tile in the bathrooms and kitchen, and replace the carpet in the bedroom to match the new hardwood floors we put in last year. Our new washer and dryer isn’t front-loading and sometimes gets off balance and makes too much noise. I wish we could keep more fresh fruit and juices in the house. I would like to have a new Honda Goldwing completely tricked out and a month or so of nice weather so the two of us could tour the US, you know, down across Texas, then through the South, along the coast of Florida and then to New York City.

I guess the point is this. The dogs had enough then, and they have enough now. I didn’t have enough then and still often times don’t feel like I have enough.

So either enough is never actually enough, or Dogs have a wisdom that I can never hope to achieve.

Do you have enough? Do your dogs?

JS