And a Tornado of Destruction Befell the Land . . .

Meet our new tornado. Our tornado in the form of a six-month old puppy. And he's an abandoned puppy, so of course he has issues.

How appropriate.

We were never going to get a puppy. Ever. Puppies eat furniture. Puppies eat shoes. Puppies poop in the house. Puppies . . . oh never mind. Let's just sum it up by saying that puppies are little tornados. Little furry, stinky, slobbery tornadoes.

It's all Peanut Head's fault. Big surprise, I know. 

We were going to wait until summer, or spring at the very least, to get a dog. A full-grown dog from the shelter. Not. A. Puppy.

Then Peanut Head e-mailed this picture to me and he included a little sob story about how Mr. Puppito was abandoned and he needed a home blah, blah, blah. He's such a marshmallow.

And then he had to go and show the picture to this one.

And then this one. Then I caved. I was a goner.

Well what would you have done?

So now we have a puppy, and it's all because Peanut Head didn't stick to the plan.

Did I mention it's a boy? I think I heard Peanut Head saying something about how he was outnumbered in this house, or something like that. Whatever. Do you see the indelicate way Mr. Puppito is lounging? It makes me want to get the carpet cleaner out, pronto.

I had to settle for a trip to the vet. Mr. Puppito came home on a Sunday, we got his shots on Monday, and by the end of the week he was neutered. Oh yeah, we took care of that mess straight away.

Once the shots and the boy bits were dealt with, we moved on to naming Mr. Puppito. Let me just say this again, Peanut Head is a ginormous dork. This is his white board, where he insisted that each of us keep a running list of names that we wanted for the pup. Frankly, the girls' names were just horrid. I'm sorry. I feel terrible about that, but really, they were. And this list you see is the edited list, so you're not even getting the true flavor of the horridness.

Plus, I couldn't seem to steer Peanut Head away from names that described food. I kept asking him if he was hungry, and he was not amused. He was actually pretty grouchy about it.

To make matters worse, Peanut Head scoured the internet for days, looking for the perfect puppy name. I am not kidding you. You would have thought he was a new daddy and this was his first born. I had no idea there were so many internet sites to help you name your dog. Seriously.

We mulled the name thing over for at least two weeks and we were getting nowhere. Nobody could agree. I couldn't understand why no one else liked GUStov Eduardo Clementine. Now that's a name you can holler down the street at night. GUStov EDUARDO Clementine, get back here this instant you naughty little doggie!

They just weren't feelin' it though. Dashed again. 

Then out of the blue, a mental fart raced through my brain and straight out my mouth without my knowledge, and I blurted out "Gunny!"

No lie. It came from nowhere.

Let me explain. Gunny is short for Gunnery Sergeant. And Peanut Head was in the Marine Corps. Mind you I didn't think any of this. It just spewed out from some secret part of my brain that I wasn't even aware existed. Imagine what nuggets of wisdom must be stored there.

And Peanut Head liked the name! Can you believe that?

So immediately he became Gunny. And correct me if I'm wrong here, but doesn't he look a little bit like a draft dodger? I think it's those shifty, no-eye-contact eyes.

Lucinda Gooseberry does not like him one little bit. She thinks he stinks and his mama dresses him funny.

And she's right. Gunny Man has a serious flatulence problem. His toots can peel the paint off walls.

And there are other undesireables as well. Of course.

The biggest problem we had was where to put this little package of giddy destruction while we were at work and school. We decided we needed to minimize the potential damage as much as possible, and that meant corralling the tornado in the hallway during the day. The worst he could do is eat a door jamb, right?

Did I mention Lucinda hates his guts?

As I was saying, minimize the destruction . . . what a joke. This is the door to Stinkerbell's room, right at the end of the hallway. All the doors are closed during the day, right? And that should suffice for someone with no opposable thumbs, right?

Apparently not. He managed to not only get Stinkerbell's door open, but then he one upped it and locked himself in the room. No lie. He is definitely Peanut Head's child.

And look what he did! Sittin' there with his no-eye-contact look, amid the destruction. How ironic that the Time Out bench is right behind him. He's going to need it.

Puppies eat shoes. And yes, thankfully this one was a hideously ugly, Dora the Explorer sandal, but still.

Puppies eat boots. They don't discriminate and just eat the hideous shoes. They go for the good stuff too. [Sniff].

And if that weren't enough, "Hey! Someone's been sleeping in my bed!"

Gee, that sounds familiar.