the freezer

So I'm reading a book right now called Marley and Me, which is a memoir about a guy and his dog. It's been a fun, quick read. The narrative starts when the author, John Grogan, and his wife adopt a puppy Labrador, and the book follows their lives together--through three children and different homes and careers, though it focuses on their experiences with Marley. I'm getting close to the end of the book; about 20 minutes with it, and I'll finish. But Marley is very old and not terribly healthy at this point, and I know what's going to happen soon. The problem is that I don't think I can finish. I'm certain it's about to get really sad, and I don't think I want to deal with that since nothing is sadder than the terrible thing I know is about to happen. In junior-high I had to do that terrible thing to my beloved cat, Mr. Pet (yes, that was her name, the name I gave her when I got her for my 2nd birthday), and it was awful. So like Joey on Friends did, when he read Little Women and got too sad to keep reading after Beth got sick, I might have to put this book in the freezer and just assume Marley stays happy and healthy forever.

There are many things in the metaphorical freezer for me. It's sort of the place where I retire movies or books when I either can't finish them for the above-mentioned reasons or if I've finished it a few times before but know better than to try again, as it will make a mess of me. This book is about to go there, next to The Blair Witch Project (which, laugh all you want, scared the shit out of me even though I loved it), Terms of Endearment (yes, it's a total 80s movie, but if I watch it, I'm ruined for the day, hence it's place in the freezer), and most recently, Eight Below, which played on the plane trip from Rome to New York so I had little choice but to watch it, even though I'd been warned it would kill me. Holy crap, I cried like a baby. There are lots of other items in there, but you get the point.

I don't know. Maybe I should go ahead and plow through Marley and Me, just so I know I've finished it. And then I'll immediately relegate it to the freezer.