One morning as the reddening leaves swirled in the wind and we readied
ourselves for school, I heard our front door open and close. Intrigued, since I could see our 3-year old and knew it wasn’t he who was making the escape, I called for our 6-year old.

No answer.
I glanced out the front window and noticed she was returning from the end of the driveway quickly. I also noticed a giant, big, cardboard box in the drive.

She slipped quietly back into the house and I pretended not to notice. She went to her bathroom and brushed her teeth. She finished getting ready for school. Nothing out of the ordinary except she’d left the house secretly for about 60-seconds and as a result (or perhaps because of it?) there was a cardboard box
at the end of our driveway.
I figured we were going to miss the bus anyway, so I let things take a little longer this morning and got Kiddo #2 ready for a drive to school and daycare. Nonchalantly, Kiddo #1 entered the kitchen and sat down in front of her cereal.

Me: Morning, honey. You look really ready for school. Yay you!
Kiddo #1: Thanks Mom!
Me: How’s the cereal?
Kiddo #1: Good. Pretty good, Mom.
Me: What’s the box in the driveway?
Kiddo #1: Oh, I uh, I dunno.
Me: Really?
Kiddo #1: Well, it might be for anything.
Me: Really?
Kiddo #1: Well, it might be.
Me: Ok.

I let it go and packed up the book bags and lunches and got Kiddo #2 into the car. The bus was long gone by this point and the two of us nonchalantly, no-big-deal-ish, got into the car. I backed it out of the garage and faced the car at the end of the driveway and stopped. It was at that point that I noticed there was writing on the box.

Me: What do you suppose it says on that box?
Kiddo #1: I uh, well, I uh, dunno.
Me: Really?
Kiddo#1: Well, it’s in black marker, I see.
Me: Sure.
Kiddo #1: Well, that’s a serious-message colour.
Me: Yes.
Kiddo #1: If it was silly or not real, it would be in lots of colours.
Me: Yes.
Kiddo #1: So. It could be for … uh, puppies.
Me: Puppies?
Kiddo #1: Well, I mean, I don’t know for sure.
Me: Let’s drive up and see.
Kiddo #1: No! You should just leave the box.
Me: Well we have to go to school anyways, so we’ll just check it out when we get to the end of the driveway. I pulled up and looked at the box. On one side it said “Free Puppies” and on the other side, it said, “Please Leave Your Free Puppies here”

Honestly. Then, I giggled.

Of course.

Where are puppies left in any assortment of children’s movies? In cardboard boxes on the side of the road. I started to really chortle when I thought of some cartoon guy in overalls driving around in a 1950’s style truck with a litter of cute puppies crawling all over the passenger seat. He’s frantic; he loves the puppies but he can’t keep them. He’s looking for a box –any cardboard box would do– to put them in so he could give them away. And, as luck would have it, here is a box at the end of a driveway, begging for free puppies! How could he not oblige the polite request? He looks back at the pups, then to the box and back at the puppies. Surely the people who put this box out were serious (hence the black marker), good people (good manners goes a long way!) who could take care of his litter of beautiful pups.

Then, I realized how incredibly smart Kiddo #1’s plan truly was.

… And that’s how we ended up with 3 identical puppies, Husband. I swear. It was just a flukey thing… totally random… happenstance.