I Don’t Buy That

Money is kind of a foreign concept to me. I know my people go to that place called work for it. I know they spend it to buy me things. But the overall concept is one that doesn’t really apply to a dog’s life as I know it.

I frequently find some solace in this, as it seems to do nothing but add stress to the lives of my people. But today I heard something that brought it home. Baby Carter has taken to watching cartoons on what I used to call the big moving picture window in the living room. I now know it as a television, but occasionally I wonder what Carter thinks of that big ole thing.

He obviously can’t tell me what he’s thinking at the tender age of three months old, but today I got a sense for it. Mom had the Disney movie “Aladdin” playing and every time the genie was on, Carter smiled. I don’t know if it was the colors or the voice or what. He just smiled so big every single time.

My first thought was how I am right there with him. I frequently long for such a genie to come into my life and grant me wishes. The first of which would be for enough money so mom could stay home with me all the time. Especially now that Carter is in the picture and he brings her the most pure sense of joy I have ever witnessed.

Alas, I won’t be the one to break the news to Carter, but there is no genie. Just like there is no way mom can stay home with him and I all the time. But there was a lesson to take from the song about Aladdin being a street rat.

“Riffraff, street rate, I don’t buy that,” Aladdin sings, “If only they’d look closer. Would they see a poor boy? No siree, they’d find out there’s so much more to me.”

Money might be a fairly foreign concept to me. Especially since I too have lived life as a street rat. But I see a lesson in dear Aladdin’s words that I hope is in some way imparting into baby Carter’s little mind. It doesn’t matter how much money we have. Or what people call us. It doesn’t matter where we come from. It matters where we are going.

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