Archie’s a fiend. I can’t really blame him, he’s found himself chylde to two layabouts while he strides the world in the body more capable of exertion than any else I have ever seen in the flesh. I often joke that he’s a diminuitive Usain Bolt, and you know that guy runs every day, if he doesn’t he gets sad, he’s just got too much body not to use it. Archie’s got all the body, and none of the brains. He can’t go off and read a book, he can’t watch a movie, he can only use his body, it’s all he’s got. 

So, when he doesn’t get a walk at the proper time, or of the proper length or intensity, he cries. Before and after he cries. He whines and follows a human around as he does it, getting in their way however he can. I don’t think he’s trying to be manipulative, he isn’t that clever, he’s just real sad that he’s got as much pent up energy as he’s got. 

The real trouble comes when we can’t keep an eye on him. It’s one thing for him to follow us around complaining about the inadequacey of is walk, and it’s quite another for him to hop on the counter and eat an entire stick of butter while we’re getting groceries, as happened a few weeks ago. 

Now that he’s gotten a taste for butter, we have to hide it whenever we go out because he’ll hop on the counter knocking things over, like our antique butter dish which now looks like an avant garde sculpture thanks to my sub-optimal repair job. 

He’s got a taste for diapers too, so we have to shut the door to the bathroom when we go, and as of today, he’s got a taste for pipe tobacco ash. 

We came home from a doctors appointment to find a handful of ash I had deposited in a paper bag spread across our bed spread. Now, what I find interesting about that, besides the fact that it does not seem delicious at all, is the fact that he knew he was in trouble. 

When we got home he didn’t greet us at the door like he always does, that’s how I knew he had done something wrong, long before I saw the bed spread. So I wonder, was he at home sweating about our return once he came out of his ash-eating fugue state? Or was it more of an Oh-Shit moment when he realized Mom & Dad were home and he had fucked up. When does the remorse start for him? Is it remorse? Or is it simply fear because he knows we’ll be upset? Is there a difference? If he knows we’ll be upset becuase of what he’s done, and he’d prefer we weren’t, why does he do it? What does it feel like for him to be compelled to do a thing he regrets? Does he feel regret? For how long? Does he feel sorry now? Does he feel relief when we don’t scold him and rub his nose in it? Does he feel as though he’s gotten away with it? What goes on in his tiny marble-smooth brain?

I’m sure I do not know. 
But I love him anyways. 

Now think about God and human sin.