I think our dog Caicos has had just about enough.
Oh, sure, it was fun at first. Caicos was surrounded by my wife, our 22-year-old daughter Emma and me all day and given all the attention a dog could want.
But that was at first. After a couple of weeks, Caicos started spending more time upstairs by herself. And when one of us would go upstairs, find her and pet her, she would give us a look that said, “All right, all right. I get it. I’m a good dog. So great, go ahead and rub my belly if you feel you must. Then get the heck out of here and leave me alone. Oh, and one more thing. Could you turn the light off when you leave? Why do you think it was turned off in the first place?”
It is, as always, a heck of a look.
Since I work from home Caicos is used to having me around. But not all day. Before all of this happened, I would be in and out of the house running errands.
By the way, what happened to running errands. Before all this happened, it seemed I had all sorts of errands that absolutely had to be run.
Now? Not so much.
I’m beginning to wonder if some of those errands weren’t so much errands as they were busy work.
Now, my most important errand seems to be an occasional trip to the liquor store. And, I think we can all agree, an occasional trip to the liquor store is your basic vital errand. Not so much for me but for my wife and Emma. Look it’s hard enough to be basically locked in the house with me. Try doing it without wine.
See, what I’m saying? Vital.
It’s a chilly, wet, dreary day and the most important decision I had to make today was whether or not it was warm enough to sit out on our three-season porch to write this column.
I decided it was.
Caicos, I guess because she was bored, came out on the three-season porch with me. But then she decided she was cold wanted to go back inside. Instead, I took the big cushion out of the chair on our three-season porch no one uses and put in on the floor so Caicos could lay on it which she did.
I don’t know why we have a chair on our three-season porch no one uses. I once asked my wife why we had a chair on our three-season porch no one uses and she said, “Because,” and I said, “I see,” even though, as I think, I’ve made clear in the past, I didn’t see.
The chair on our three-season porch no one uses is called a “Papasan” chair. It’s round and is made out of some sort of wood that is supposed to be bamboo but probably isn’t.
My wife says the chair goes with the overall theme of our three-season porch.
I didn’t know our three-season porch had an overall theme. But, then again, there are a lot of things I don’t know around our house.
I’m pretty sure, sometime this afternoon, my wife is going to come out onto our three-season porch and say “What in the (Bad word) is the Papasan chair cushion doing on the floor?” and I will probably say “So Caicos can lay on it,” and my wife will say “And why is Caicos laying on it?” and I will say “Because it’s on the floor. Duh.”
And the conversation will sort of go sideways from there.
“But, Mike,” some of you are thinking. “Wouldn’t it be smart to make Caicos get off the cushion and put it back in the chair before your wife comes out onto the three-season porch?”
To some of you thinking that I say, “Yes, yes it would.”
But some of you are thinking “But you’re not going to do the smart thing are you?”
To some of you thinking that I say, “Probably not.”
I mean, what the heck?
It’s not as if I have any errands to run.