How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane by Johanna Stein Page B

that time:
    He chewed up two sets of eyeglasses and four pairs of shoes.
    He took a crap on my friend’s living room floor, in the middle of a Sunday brunch.
    He bit me.
    And he humped. Oh, how TAD humped.
    But what TAD lacked in, well, just about everything, he made up for in personality, affection, and a Great Dane–size capacity to love. After the two-week probation period I had to admit that I’d fallen head over tail in love with him (the owner-dog kind, nothing kinky/ bestial here), and he became my constant companion for the next fourteen years. When he died I wore black for a week, in honor of the tiny man in the dog suit who taught me that it’s not always love at first sight. Sometimes it’s love at second, third, or fifty-seventh sight; and sometimes you just gotta look past the couch-humping and give love a chance to grow.
    Next up was “ The Younger Man, ” who was young enough (don’t ask how young—all you need to know is that it was legal) that at first I didn’t take him seriously. But he was so diligent and confident and unsullied by other women’s baggage that one day, after weeks of telling him, “Hell, no,” I found myself saying, “Well . . . okay!”
    He was fun. He taught me how to shoot a pistol. He let me drive his fast car. He wrote me love letters—in pen . But I missed a couple of clues. Like the fact that my dog growled at him whenever he came over. And the fact that he was forgetful. Like he forgot to tell me when he started seeing someone else.
    And that’s when I remembered why I’d turned him down in the first place. I’d thought he was too young, and I was right; in the end, he was as careless with me as I’d been with other people back when I was his age. I don’t blame him for doing what he did (ah, screw that—I’m holding onto this grudge like a family heirloom), but I am thankful that he got me to Lesson 8: Trust your gut. And when your own guts fail you, trust the guts of your dog. *
    And then there’s Lesson 9, who is the culmination of all the ones who came before. He’s the story that’s still unfolding and the lesson that I’m still learning, andhe’s the one who led to the kid and all the lessons I’m learning from her. *
    Yes, the route was messy. And yes, it contained record numbers of bad hairstyles. But the fact is that it was only through this convoluted, partially clad scavenger hunt through humanity (and canine-ity) that I was able to find my way home. And yes, there may have been a few “additional” lessons along the way † (like “Just because a guy takes your mom to the Academy Awards, that doesn’t mean that he’s ‘The One,’” “Beware of dudes with facial tattoos,” and “Don’t get engaged just because your lease is up”)—those I’ll save for my next book, “Laughing on the Outside, Farting on the Inside,” available in bookstores never.
    And maybe in preemptively sharing these stories with my daughter, by the time she’s falling in and out of love/ like/loathe/lust, she’ll have learned that, just as everyone who enters her life becomes a part of her story, she is a part of someone else’s story—which is why it’s so important to always err on the side of kindness. And adventure. But not too much adventure. And occasional public nudity. (But with sunscreen.)
    If nothing else, my hope is that when she’s fifteen, screaming, “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” and slammingher door so hard that my porcelain Hummel figurines (which I don’t collect yet, but I’m assuming that one day I will) fall from the doilied shelf in the guest bathroom, I can hand her this book and say “Oh yes I do. Go read Chapter 12.”

    * Who, while driving me to the library when I was fourteen years old, stopped at a red light and gave me the only piece of sexual