(10-97) It was a strange day. I had lunch with someone from another department. We sat in a booth against the wall facing the whole cafeteria. A place I normally would not choose. A nurse whom I rarely see passed by and started chatting with my friend. She asked her whether she wanted a dog. "It's a sharpei." She said.

I don't care for dogs. They are too much trouble to take care of. A shar-pei, however, I might consider. I love all the ugly wrinkles of their face. I began to inquire about the dog. In a matter of seconds, I was committed to adopt this dog.

I knew my husband was not going to be pleased. I didn't mention the dog until the day he was going to be delivered. I didn't want to hear the nags and the concerns and the issues... I simply said: "We are going to have a dog." "What? Do you know what this means?" Out came the concerns, and the issues, and the nags. I simply said: "We are going to have a dog."

I can't explain why I want this dog. Perhaps, it's the way it came to my attention. If it was anything formal, I might have taken the time to think and reject the idea. The word "shar-pei" rang a bell of a longing from far in the past that I wished I could own an ugly, wrinkled, fury thing. Everything happened so fast, I had a sense of surrealism and fate. Maybe, I'm just destined to have this dog.

I remembered I had a dog once. She was a tiny dog with curly black hair and long ears. I was in grade school. I knew nothing about how to take care of a dog. I only played with her whenever I felt like it. One day, to my surprise, I found lice deeply imbedded under her curly hair. I screamed. My father reassured me that it was just lice, nothing to be afraid of. He pulled it out of her skin, and it was an oval shaped grayish black thing. He pinched it under his thumb nail, and blood came out. "It is Xiao Hei's blood," father said. "This is a blood sucking thing." From then on, playing with Xiao Hei was partly pleasure, partly fear and disgust. I was obsessed trying to find lice and kill them. But there were so many, I never seemed to get an upper hand of the matter. Gradually I lost interest. I lost my interest in Xiao Hei as well as the lice. Later, we had to move, and my mother decided to give it away to a neighbor. Xiao Hei was out of my mind for a long time until one day my mother took me to visit the old neighbor. I saw her again. Her hair had lost its shiny look. She looked dirtier and thinner. Her eyes looked sad behind the long hair that draped over. She followed me for a while and gave me a few whines. I don't remember much of the evening. I only remember I was pretty angry with the adults who drank and ate as if nothing happened, and I remembered Xiao Hei's eyes.

I never own a dog ever since Xiao Hei. Many years ago, I did gathered enough courage to get a Shar-Pei. We visited the breeder and saw the puppy. Days later, I decided not to buy it. I was not sure I was capable of taking care of a dog. Rationality always wins. I don't know why this time I'm so completely impulsive.

Shaba is the dog's name. He is a two year old male with thick black hair. He has a problem of ingrown eyelid. One of his eyes has a big red pus and it makes him look slightly devilish. The first thing I did was to give him a bath with a new bottle of special shampoo for fleas and ticks. He was very good. He let me bathe him without much struggling. That immediately bonded us together. He turned out to be a calm well behaved dog. At the end of the day I have forgotten how strange his eye looked. This is the fourth day of his stay here. I have given him two baths already. As I look over my shoulder while typing, I see him laying down nearby with his wrinkled face resting on his paw and I have a sense of peace and satisfaction.