A weekend with the in-laws. Sounds fun right? Believe it or not, it is. I couldn't love the Kents more if they were my real parents and they are (in law). But one weekend wasn't so fun.

Clark and I were walking home from church and we were passing the field where Clark came to Earth and that's when we heard it. This annoying little yip.

Clark, hero that he is, had to go and investigate and I admit I'm as sucker for stray dogs too. Two things keep me from being a dog lover though, allergies and pride.

There was a little spaceship with foreign symbols on it. Clark acted like he was reading it.

"Don't tell me you can read that?"

"It's Kryptonian."

"And since when could you read Kryptonian?"

"Since I learned it at the Cave."

"What does it say?" Lois asked, bending over to inspect it.

"Silence is good in wives."

"Really, Clark!"

"It says it's a test flight."

There was a bark again. Clark opened it and a white puppy bounded out. He scooped it up and the dog acted like it knew Clark. He wagged his tail and licked him like there was no tomorrow.

"Friend of yours, Smallville?"

"There's only one thing to do when you have a Kryptonian question," Clark began.

Together we said, "Ask Jor-El."

So we did. There's an interesting little story behind it. Jor-El used the dog as a guinea pig before he put Clark in a spaceship. A meteorite had knocked the ship into orbit. Somehow it had made its way to Earth after all these years. Apparently the light speed had kept the mutt from aging. I don't know all the scientific mumbo jumbo Jor-El used.

Now we were stuck with a dog. You couldn't take an alien dog to the SPCA. I'm going to be sneezing for the rest of my life. That's when I realized I hadn't sneezed. I wondered if Clark had noticed. Allergies were my defense to keep the dog at the fortress.

"We sure are lucky, you're not allergic to Kryptonian dogs. Now we can keep him at the apartment."

He noticed.

"Come on, Krypto," he said. "It's time to go see your new home."

"Krypto?"

"Yeah, remember you said my next dog could be called Krypto."

My words had come back to haunt me. I didn't know his dog was going to be my dog. I wondered if it was too late to start sneezing. "Achoo!"

"That's a fake sneeze, if I ever heard one."

"Really? I thought it was a good fake sneeze."

We quickly found out he had powers like Clark. Try explaining to an old lady why her French poodle caused Krypto to shoot red beams from his eyes. The key is just to pretend you didn't see anything.

I hung up the phone. It didn't seem the landlord wanted to change his pet policies. That was my last resort. Clark was out saving the world. Krypto could be a sidekick. That would get him out of the building. I had to remember to suggest that to Clark. The white fur ball walked up to me and jumped in my lap. He was soft and his tongue tickled. I raised him up and whispered in his ear, "If you ever tell Clark I like you, you'll be in a dog pound so fast it'll make your head spin."

The End