The last great wall of adulthood: Do we or don’t we become parents — of a dog?

I had been minding my own business, always a sure sign of trouble, when a life-altering decision came into view and stood in the middle of the highway of my life. My wife called me just after she had learned of it, and she wanted to know what we should do.

We have technically been adults for more than 10 years now, during which time we’ve made decisions big (getting married, moving, purchasing vehicles) and small (scrambled eggs or omelets on Sunday mornings) and have made a mostly comfortable life for ourselves in the sleepy metropolis that is Tampa. Her question, however, now threatens all of this with its sheer magnitude of life-changing possibilities.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I suppose we could.”

This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2010.