Some days you can’t hear yourself think around here. No one knows what a whisper is. Dallas, love of my life that he is, loves sci-fi and shoot-em-up movies. Loud. So I am either hearing guns and car chases or lasers and “Luke, I am your father…” Sometimes even at the same time as he is typically male and can’t keep his finger off the remote control. The kids can’t just fight with each other like normal kids. They have to scream at each other. It usually also involves squeals of pain as they are in this phase where they have to physically hurt each other. At least I hope it’s a phase. And the shelties are… well, shelties like to “talk.” And if there is nothing happening for them to bark at (the squirrel ran through our yard, the mail man delivered a letter, a leaf dropped on a lush lawn three blocks away) they will talk to each other. Just for the shear joy of hearing their own voices.
So I escape downstairs to my beading, hoping that no one will follow me. Naïve, I know. Then the phone rings. The kids still haven’t figured out how to answer a phone, Dallas can’t hear it over the tv, and someone has moved the portable phone so that I have to hunt to find it. Meanwhile, Mikki and Kai think that I am hard of hearing (after all this I will be) and have to tell me that the phone is ringing. But the joke is on me. Dallas has programmed my phone to play circus music.
So it’s official.
So I escape downstairs to my beading, hoping that no one will follow me. Naïve, I know. Then the phone rings. The kids still haven’t figured out how to answer a phone, Dallas can’t hear it over the tv, and someone has moved the portable phone so that I have to hunt to find it. Meanwhile, Mikki and Kai think that I am hard of hearing (after all this I will be) and have to tell me that the phone is ringing. But the joke is on me. Dallas has programmed my phone to play circus music.
So it’s official.
Waiting at the gate for a reason to bark.
2 comments:
As the owner of a dog who likes to bark at imaginary disturbances, I totally sympathize. Earlier in the week, she was barking at what I was sure was another false alarm (so far we haven't had a high rate of mass murderers in the neighborhood) and I told her--TOLD her--there was nothing going on outside. I went down to the door, unlocked it, and threw it open... And screamed. There were some college students going door-to-door handing out leaflets to notify people of the upcoming rock concert. It was a courtesy, so they said; basically, if you're a cancer patient, you'd better croak now, 'cause there's squat you can do about the concert, nyah-nyah-boo-boo. The lad was shocked. I was embarrassed. The dog just looked like she was saying, "See? I told you so, mom!"
Beautiful dogs! I'm lucky my boys don't bark too much. Only when the trash truck comes by. Or the UPS truck. Or that damn kid with his skateboard. But only then.
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