For a few months last fall, my neighbor's back door didn't quite shut all the way. Now it does.
Foreshadowing.
It's spring in Oklahoma.
Meaning many of our days and nights, when we turn on the TV, we're not met with our favorite television shows but with this:
Radar of OMGHUGEstormscomingourway! Coupled with the local meteorologists running around all excited and threatening armageddon via tornadoes, flash floods, hail, or a combination of all three. It's all very exciting. Weather pretty much turns into a form of entertainment around here in April, May and June. One of the weathermen even started wearing Liberace-inspired ties on bad weather days. He has a facebook page and everything.
But that's not what I wanted to tell you about.
What I wanted to tell you about was my dog.
Who, when thunderstorms roll in, turns into an 85-pound quivering ball of mush:
Yup. There he is. Panting underneath my desk in an area that is barely big enough to contain Larry. He gets full-on anxiety attacks when thunder strikes and he will bolt like a runner at the starting gun with the noise. One of his favorite places to go is in The Boy's room. I guess he thinks huge piles of dirty laundry will protect him from the scariness outdoors.
One day a few months ago I sorta left him outside when a thunderstorm rolled in. It was an accident! I didn't get home from work that day until 6 in the morning, so all capacity for rational thought had exited my brain two hours prior. I knew a storm was coming, but I didn't think it would be until late afternoon.
Anyway, when I woke up it had obviously been storming for a while. So I went to the back door to let the dog in.
Me: PHLUFFY!
No dog.
Me: FLUUUUUUU--FEEEEEEEE!
No dog.
Me: Come'ere boy! COM'ON HUFF!
No dog.
Dammit.
Am I going to have to go out there in the rain and drag him in?
I did.
He wasn't in the yard.
I checked all his hidey holes and he was gone. The back fences were both intact and there were no obvious holes he had dug along the yard parameters. Phluffy The Wonder Dog!! Able to leap tall fences in a single bound of storm-induced terror!
So I did the whole get-in-my-car-and-drive-around thing, but he was history. I called the pound. No sign of him. I stressed, but only because I was going to have to tell the kids the dog was MIA. And before you get on to me for being a heartless wench, let me explain. He had done this once before and turned up a couple of hours later. He was apparently riding out the storm on our street somewhere because that's where we found him. I figured it would be the same case here. But as the day wore on and there was no sign of him, I did begin to get a bit worried. I started thinking I would have to make signs when another car tour around the neighborhood and call to the pound in the the late afternoon left me dog-less.
5:30 that evening there's a knock on my door. I opened it to find my dog accompanied by my next-door neighbor, who had been at work all day. The kids were ecstatic, The Huff was happy to be home, and my neighbor, Miles, was bemused.
Me: OMG!! Where did you find him?
Miles put his hands on his hips and cocked his head a bit: You really want to know?
(Uh oh)
Me: Yeah, of course.
Miles: Underneath my bed. ->
Foreshadowing.
It's spring in Oklahoma.
Meaning many of our days and nights, when we turn on the TV, we're not met with our favorite television shows but with this:
Radar of OMGHUGEstormscomingourway! Coupled with the local meteorologists running around all excited and threatening armageddon via tornadoes, flash floods, hail, or a combination of all three. It's all very exciting. Weather pretty much turns into a form of entertainment around here in April, May and June. One of the weathermen even started wearing Liberace-inspired ties on bad weather days. He has a facebook page and everything.
But that's not what I wanted to tell you about.
What I wanted to tell you about was my dog.
Who, when thunderstorms roll in, turns into an 85-pound quivering ball of mush:
 |
| I don't like lightning. |
Yup. There he is. Panting underneath my desk in an area that is barely big enough to contain Larry. He gets full-on anxiety attacks when thunder strikes and he will bolt like a runner at the starting gun with the noise. One of his favorite places to go is in The Boy's room. I guess he thinks huge piles of dirty laundry will protect him from the scariness outdoors.
One day a few months ago I sorta left him outside when a thunderstorm rolled in. It was an accident! I didn't get home from work that day until 6 in the morning, so all capacity for rational thought had exited my brain two hours prior. I knew a storm was coming, but I didn't think it would be until late afternoon.
Anyway, when I woke up it had obviously been storming for a while. So I went to the back door to let the dog in.
Me: PHLUFFY!
No dog.
Me: FLUUUUUUU--FEEEEEEEE!
No dog.
Me: Come'ere boy! COM'ON HUFF!
No dog.
Dammit.
Am I going to have to go out there in the rain and drag him in?
I did.
He wasn't in the yard.
I checked all his hidey holes and he was gone. The back fences were both intact and there were no obvious holes he had dug along the yard parameters. Phluffy The Wonder Dog!! Able to leap tall fences in a single bound of storm-induced terror!
So I did the whole get-in-my-car-and-drive-around thing, but he was history. I called the pound. No sign of him. I stressed, but only because I was going to have to tell the kids the dog was MIA. And before you get on to me for being a heartless wench, let me explain. He had done this once before and turned up a couple of hours later. He was apparently riding out the storm on our street somewhere because that's where we found him. I figured it would be the same case here. But as the day wore on and there was no sign of him, I did begin to get a bit worried. I started thinking I would have to make signs when another car tour around the neighborhood and call to the pound in the the late afternoon left me dog-less.
5:30 that evening there's a knock on my door. I opened it to find my dog accompanied by my next-door neighbor, who had been at work all day. The kids were ecstatic, The Huff was happy to be home, and my neighbor, Miles, was bemused.
Me: OMG!! Where did you find him?
Miles put his hands on his hips and cocked his head a bit: You really want to know?
(Uh oh)
Me: Yeah, of course.
Miles: Underneath my bed. ->
