Last night I was downtown with some time to kill before a dinner reservation, and I needed a bit of a pick-me-up, so I walked to Christopher Street to perv on some puppies. For whatever reason (no, for a solitary reason: rich Village people) Christopher Street is the nucleus of the Manhattan designer puppy trade. These puppy boutiques have every kind of genetically engineered, possibly inbred critter you can imagine: yorkies, pomeranians, shih tzus, teacup teacups, dollhouse chihuahuas, disappearing poodles, and dogs whose heads were shrunk by voodoo priests and then grafted onto tumbleweeds. In short, these boutiques are where men take their girlfriends when they want to get laid, and they are where puppies go when they want to sit by themselves in tiny, pee-fragrant cages and look at everybody with sad eyes, and they are where I go when I’m feeling down and want to have a sad-eye staring contest with some lonely puppies.
I understand that the whole miniature puppy breeding business is ethically suspect, and I understand that maybe I shouldn’t frequent these shops, but if it’s wrong to be emotionally manipulated into loving tiny adorable creatures who lick the glass separating your two faces until their tongues are raw, and who make you feel that you’re not fate’s only miserable prisoner, then I don’t want to be right. “Aren’t those places depressing?” asked my friend at dinner. “Of course,” I said. “But they’re sad, and I’m sad, so it’s a good fit.” Then I got drunk and wanted to launch a midnight puppy raid before it occurred to me that I’ve basically become Cruella De Vil.