Tuesday, April 29, 2014

La Cucaracha

Lucy is a small dog, low to the ground, longer than she is tall. The length of her shiny, black coat obscures the upper portion of her legs so that she appears to be moving about on short stubs.

Lucy (at right) with Gimpy

In a house full of soft-cushioned places to nap, Lucy can most often be found in the bathroom, curled up on the cold, hard floor in the narrow space behind the toilet. Back there, in the deep shadow of the porcelain throne, she's barely noticeable unless one is looking specifically for her. She isn't visible at all from the doorway.

I forget that Lucy likes to sleep there--and that she is a sound sleeper. I go in there with one thought in mind, close the door behind me, take three steps, turn around and take a seat. Just as I get down to business, Lucy, suddenly awakened, darts out of her lair, skirts my feet and scurries across the floor like the Godzilla of all cockroaches, her tail waving like an antenna except that it's on the wrong end of her forward motion. She doesn't stop until she reaches the door, where she turns around and looks at me for the first time. Only then does my heart rate begin a slow descent back to normal. I imagine that's when Lucy's does, too.

4 comments:

  1. That is such a cute story! It also means you are a good housekeeper. Dogs don't like to sleep any place that smells like poo.

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    1. Glad you liked the story, Annette. I wish it did mean I'm a good housekeeper, but I can't claim that label. I think it more likely means that a dog that's been caught eating poo at least twice in her lifetime isn't repelled by the smell of it.

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  2. That is too funny! What would we do without our dogs!?!

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    1. Betsy, dogs make life so much richer, don't they? Who else would wake us from a sound sleep to alert us to distant thunder?

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