When Daryl Meets Creamy

Like Harry and Sally, my beloved Liverpool and the evil Chelsea, and the almighty God and everyone one of us, Daryl and Creamy are destined to meet each other.

As many of you may have already known, before Daryl was born, my wife and I have a little (shall I say "chubby"?) companion at home. That's Creamy, a lovely little, er, chubby Schnauzer whom we treat as our own daughter (which is not to say we GAVE BIRTH to her, for Christ's sake).

Following the so-called professional advice by a number of medical practitioners, we decided to separate them after Daryl was born. And on the very day my wife went to the hospital for delivery, someone (my dad) broke into my house and kidnapped Creamy (so that she could move in with them) and asked for a huge ransom (to buy food and snacks for her).

And being as ignorant and careful as many of you may have been, we decided to follow the professional advice by not letting them to see each other before Daryl's six-month birthday. Once Daryl is more than six-month old, we decided to lift the embargo and let them meet.

You may say that we have been preparing for this day for quite a while. But the truth is, we didn't do anything special. We just wheeled Daryl to my parents' home in his pram, and voila, they had their first encounter.

Being as naughty and energetic as ever, Creamy was so curious about Daryl that she tried every trick she has learnt to reach Daryl. No, she didn't want to bite him. She just wanted to take a sniff at him, as if to see if he's got illegal drugs in his possession, as every dog will do by nature. And as if merely taking a sniff wasn't enough, she even wanted to kiss Daryl, just like a crazy fan dying to inch closer and closer to her superstar idol. But she was swiftly blocked and turned away by Yours Truly's dad and Yours Truly, the rookie tag-team bouncers.

However, that wasn't Creamy's first encounter with Daryl. Creamy always loves sleeping with us on our bed, and sometimes would kind of cry if we didn't let her to. Yet long before we were aware of my wife's pregnancy, Creamy one day suddenly decided that enough is enough and jumped off our bed, most probably because, I thought, of my seriously annoying snoring problem. But judging from the timing and her reluctance to get back onto the bed afterwards, we have every reason to believe that she knew of Daryl's existence long before everyone did. Talk about a really smart and caring dog.

Technically speaking, that wasn't their first encounter. Daryl had already visited Creamy when he was a month old. Yet he was sleeping all the way through and didn't even notice her existence. So that doesn't count.

As for Daryl, we never imagined how excited he would be when he saw Creamy. While sitting in his pram, he suddenly moved his upper body towards the front, as if he wanted to have a closer look and touch her with his hands. We had never seen him done that before, probably because nothing in our home, including us, is as attractive and lovely as Creamy to draw his full attention.