Don’t be fooled by these innocent-looking brown eyes and sweet furry expression.
This is the face of a criminal, perpetrator of a crime so heinous and unthinkable those of us who witnessed it could only stand helplessly by, gasping and paralyzed with shock.
It happened this morning. My fourth-grade daughter put down her backpack and insulated lunch bag while we waited for the bus with neighbors.
The bus pulled up. My girl hugged me good bye. She went to pat the dog good bye.
But the dog was busy.
PEEING ON HER LUNCH BAG.
“Aaaaaah!” my girl gasped.
“Uh…” my neighbor mumbled.
“Wha?” I stuttered.
“Ha!” my 5-year-old son laughed.
“Whizz,” Jasper peed. Then he wagged his tail a few times.
“Aaaaah!” my daughter gasped again, louder this time.
The bus driver waited, mouth agape, as we shoved her thermos and sandwich into her backpack, and I picked up the drippy lunch bag with two fingers.
Jasper wagged his tail some more.
Why did he do this? Why?!
I’ll never know. But I do know that a poor character in a future book will suffer the same pee-soaked fate.
My agent, Nicole Resciniti, recently tweeted this: “Writing Tip of the Day: try to surprise the reader. Flip conventions, use misdirections, insert some plot twists. Readers luv 2 b surprised.”
In other news: Dog for sale.