There are some very good times and some not quite as good times at the Casa del Whackos. But usually the best times come at the most unexpected times, and this was the case tonight.
Everyone had crashed early, and canine snores filled the air as dogs were sprawled everywhere it was most inconvenient. Great, I thought; I’ll get a little writing done. Then I heard that all too familiar high-pitched whine, and feel that piercing guiltgaze boring through my skull; Charlie’s having one of her episodes. She sometimes wakes from a dead sleep and decides that some dad-lovin’s are on the menu, and right now’s the time, and later will not do.
The problem is that Charlie is not like any other dog I have ever encountered. You would think that such a self centered diva would be all about getting the pets, but if you you thought this, you would be wrong. No, she’s only content when she’s in charge and she’s being the petter instead of the pettee, and her preferred method of petting is an extended face-licking session. And it’s not enough to just lick; she’s only content if she has all 65# of her bulky monumentality planted directly on my chest, with the majority of this weight concentrated directly on her elbows.
And she will not stop with the whole waterboarding thing until my whole noggin is completely exfoliated with dog spit and I have to physically extricate myself from the mass of suffocating hairy black lava. Usually that will placate her enough to back to sleep and leave me with a layer of canine saliva drying on my face, waiting to be peeled away like some sort of unholy cold cream, but not tonight.
Suddenly, I feel the whole bed shaking; what now? Has the New Madrid fault line finally gone active and the earthquake that we’ve been told to expect for years is finally happening? I should be so lucky. Charlie is hunching her back against the bedframe while looking expectantly over her shoulder; obviously, it’s butt-scratching time. Of course, this gets Titus interested, and before I can shut down the festivities, the Battle of Bitey Mouth is in full re-enactment.
Then it dawns on me; this is all mom’s fault. She elected to go to bed early, well before the appointed time that all hell breaks loose on a nightly basis, 9:30. So I am left alone to deal with the maelstrom until, as suddenly as it began, peace reasserts itself at the Casa.
But now I’m all jacked up and can’t sleep, but does anyone around here care? Noooo, I should think not… I think that I just might drown in my own self‐pity. That, or the tears that are currently soaking my pillow.
I’m so mistreated.
