I avoided Marley & Me when the movie opened this Christmas, mostly because the trailers reminded me of Beethoven (with Owen Wilson in the Charles Grodin role). However, I picked up the book recently because … well, because I like to read and am currently unemployed. I don’t claim to be highbrow. I already admitted to having read Confessions of a Shopaholic, okay?
Anyway, the book is not really like Beethoven, but is actually a fairly entertaining slice of life story about family, marriage, and dog ownership. The prose is certainly nothing special and it won’t go down as one of the Great Reads of Our Time or anything like that, but it was a breezy read that I had been finding entertaining enough.
Entertaining enough, that is, until I reached the last several chapters at the laundromat today. I don’t think it’s a huge spoiler to say that in a book about a life with a dog, the dog will get old. And we all know what happens when dogs get old.
As I read about the aging family pet, I started to get that choked up feeling in the back of my throat. I sniffled a little. I should have known to put the book down then and just succumbed to watching the hypnotic dryer cycle, but I kept reading. My eyes welled up. “HOLD IT TOGETHER!” I yelled at myself internally. “YOU’RE IN PUBLIC! IF YOU START CRYING NOW, YOU WILL BE EVEN WEIRDER THAN THAT WOMAN WHO INTRODUCED YOU TO HER CATS AT THE LAUNDROMAT A FEW WEEKS AGO!”
My internal monologue was all for naught, however. I cried. I wasn’t emitting huge, racking sobs or anything like that, but I was definitely crying. At the laundromat. Over a book with Jennifer Aniston on the cover.
I think I need to find a new place to do my laundry.
