This morning I'm running to the Coop before work to pick up milk (organic, duh), bread (high fiber), and eggs (brown) — essentials we're completely out of (because that's the kind of mom I am), and there's a man on 6th avenue walking a two-legged dog that has some elaborate wheeled contraption functioning as its back legs. And just two days ago, on the same kind of I'm-a-bad-unprepared-mommy errand, that time to Union Market (where we pay double the Coop prices for the convenience of professional cashiers and paying for our purchases on the same line where they were rung up), I see a different dog, another dog, similarly handicapped, similarly outfitted. Sure, we all love dogs, and some of us especially love special dogs. But is this the best way to display our legendary upper-middle-class bohemian brand of liberalism - by parading around parapalegic dogs attached to Rube Goldberg-esque jalopies? Especially because there's an inherent superiority to this display: Look at me! I've chosen the uncute to cuddle, the unlovable to love. I'm not just paying lip service to my ideals.

But I shouldn't be so hard on us Slopers. It isn't just dogs that earn our compassion; for example, most of usually give right of way on Seventh Avenue to that pain in the ass local kook, the woman in the motorized go-cart thing (the one who barks "Excuse me, Dear Sister" as she barrels past in her own wheeled jalopy, forcing small children to leap aside to safety) and hand her bottle after bottle of POM juice from the Coop refrigerator until you produce one that meets her exacting standards ("This one isn't filled to the top!" "This one's been opened!"). That's nice of us! It's a very trying situation to be in. Of course the savvier among us know to drag a tired toddler on a 3-block detour to avoid Dear Sister on the street, or opt to forgo milk for Baby to steer clear of her in Aisle One at the Coop. Sure we're bleeding heart liberals, but we're not goddamn saints.

Maybe a challenged dog affixed to a skateboard isn't such a bad representation of our politics, after all.

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