"Then the well-dressed mommy told the well-dressed puppy..."

"...don't forget to think of me when you're promenading under a cherry blossom tree in comfortable mid-50s and Mommy's goodie-bits inside her wireless Apex freeze off in a late-spring snowstorm!"

The puppy, bedecked in a chocolate and white polka dot Trish Hampton harness with lime-green grosgrain ribbon-trim and complementing - not matching but complementing - chocolate leash, looked his tearful mother squarely in the eyes, narrowed his own to slits, looked away and said nothing.

"It's just too hard, I know," she said, "but I have no choice -- the Easter Bunny's presents for you are too big and too numerous for him to deliver. I must go get them myself. See here, here's the note."

What she didn't know when this picture was taken and would only realize later on that evening was that it wasn't heartbreak that kept the little terrier from engaging in a meaningful goodbye. It wasn't frustration with her ridiculous stories, either -- he knew good and well that was a CVS receipt for nail polish remover and an Allure magazine, not a note from the Easter Bunny. No, Montesquieu's vitriolic look was borne out of anger he'd held onto since this morning when she disobeyed his one and only iron-clad fashion rule for spring: shelf the all-black ensemble until September. At the earliest.

It's certainly going to be a long spring...