An Afternoon of Strange Animal Encounters

Raising kids is always an interesting thing.  Yesterday afternoon when I arrived home from work I walked right into something unexpected. One of the kids in my neighborhood had stumbled upon a stray cat who had kittens in an abandoned house on my street. He had somehow managed to get a hold of one of the kittens, he brought it over to our house to show us, and then he used his business instincts to track down one of his friends and sell him the cat for $17 (I'm not sure how he knew the going rate for stray kittens these days, but that's another story). He came back to my house after the sale, shared what had happened with my daughters, and he promptly invited them to join in on his new business venture. Apparently, the offer made was that he would catch the rest of the stray kittens, bring them over to our house, my daughters would give the kittens a bath so that they smelled good going into the business transaction, their friend would then go out into the community and sell the kittens to other kids in Homewood, and then he would come back to our house and share a certain percentage of the profits with my daughters (I'm not sure if they took into consideration the overhead costs of water, soap, and towels involved in bathing kittens, but that's another matter). They had the whole plan worked out, and just as I was figuring out how I should respond to this situation, my wife informed me that our dog, a boxer named Bella, was having a false pregnancy. She had confused several of her squeaky toys for "puppies," and she was carrying them gently around the house while "mothering" them. The thought briefly crossed my mind, wondering if my daughters and their friend from the neighborhood might also be able to sell my fake squeaky toy "grandpuppies" in the underground pet market in Homewood, but I thought that might not be such a good idea. After a tough conversation with my daughters about how they are not allowed to profit from the aiding and then selling of helpless stray animals in our neighborhood, and after trying to explain to my daughters that our dog thinks she has puppies when she actually doesn't, I was ready to chalk up my afternoon as one of the most bizarre afternoons I've ever had. Oh, and I got to drop over $200 at the vet to find out that my dog really was not pregnant but only a mother in her head. I can only imagine how much it costs to take a dog to a pet psychologist! As if I needed more female hormonal issues around my house anyway! I wonder what unexpected adventures await me when I arrive home today?