When Economists are Irrational...

Meet our new dog, Jake.

 

Jake is from Wolf Point, Montana which is 2,270 miles from my front door.

 

On July 11th we were driving across northern Montana when I decided to stop for gas before we hit a long stretch of nothing.

 

I heard my wife say, "Ahhhhh, he's sooooo cute!!!" a few seconds after she got out of our car.  I thought maybe she was talking about me but how cute can anyone be pumping gas?

 

When I came out of the gas station she was holding this Golden Retriever/English Setter mix puppy. 

 

Uh, oh.

 

Surely this was going to be one of those few seconds of fun and then we would move on towards Florida.  After all, 2,270 miles with a puppy is exactly 2,270 miles of potential disaster at every turn.

 

She would not put him down.

 

I then had to "go all economist" on her and start sentences with words like, "Do you understand...." and "Have you thought about......" and "A dog means that........"

 

She did not hear a word.  No matter what cost-benefit calcuation I conjoured up, she just looked up at me like a four-year old girl and said, "But he's so cute."

 

Case closed.

 

She even said, as she got in the car with him, "Let's just get in the car and figure this out as we go along."

 

2,270 miles later Jake is adjusting to humidity, fire ants and the joys of air conditioning while we are adjusting to pee on the floor, running around at 2:00 in the morning and the $1,130 in fencing that is going in next week.

 

But he is so cute.

 

Note:  Some of you might be wondering, "How did they know if he belonged to anyone in Montana"? 

 

Good question.  He had no collar, was underfed and had been hanging around there for awhile according to some residents of the small town.  Now he has a collar, is eating everything and is hanging around our house.

 

Wish us luck.