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Yes Dear!


Grumpy Bear

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Sugar Bear is a cat person. I’m a dog guy but love cats too. For twenty five years…cat’s it is and the world is good. Then came Rex. Oh he couldn’t be a better dog for a cat person. Great first impressions and all. But under it all…she’s still a cat person.

She’s also been working some very long days with strangers doing a merger of IT where they are adopting the ‘other’ system instead of the one she’s been servicing for a few decades. STRESSSSSSS. She comes home tired and agitated.

For whatever reason dogs like cat food better than dog food. Just is. Dog doesn’t even have to be hungry, just interested and tonight he was, interested…very interested.

The cats have been living in the back bedroom since Rex arrived. They use to have free run of the entire house and still do at night when he’s burrowed in between the Misses and I. Not ideal but their choice none the less. They do get over this in time but Sugar Bears, stressed ones, are not all that patient.

I feed puppy, she feeds the kitties and so we do. There is a special smell to wet cat food that’s like stink bait to a cat fish so he does what dogs do. Runs them off their bowls and steals. This brings a rather loud, “REX!!!!”, followed by the stamping of feed and clapping of hands. Off he runs…..until she’s out of sight. Then it’s just good old fashion rinse and repeat.

At first it’s amusing to me. Then about the twentieth time it becomes a real pain in the neck. I’m watching the game and can’t hear a thing.

I get up and close the door to the cats room to isolate them. Keep the dog away and let them eat in peace. Seems rational, right? Oh no……

“Open that door! Don’t jail them in there! Damn dog!” and down the hall she storms. I don’t flinch and inch standing my ground ignoring my smarter self.

“Damn dog”, she repeats checking up short but really red.

“Look”, I say, “it’s just a few minutes until he loses interest and he will lose interest”. Their attention span isn’t that long unless a squirrel is involved.

“I don’t care” she catches a second wind. “They shouldn’t have to be subjected to all this commotion and insanity”.

Then…I say something  very true but really, REALLY STUPID.

“Dog isn’t the one screaming and stomping about”.

I just may never here “Yes Dear” again. Unless she starts talking to me again.

Ah…peace and quiet. Maybe it wasn’t that dumb after all.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I’m not an animal person, not that I hate them just don’t want them around. Wife is a dog person so we have two little yappers. They generally stay outside in the fenced backyard with a big deck. They can’t be in the house long cause the wife hasn’t gotten around to training them yet, they’re 14 years old. I’m an early bird so when I go to bed she brings them in for awhile then puts them in their big kennel.They’re really kid replacements since the kids are grown. Next time I’m picking the dog and training being retired I’ll have the time.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

A rapid stir carried the spoon around the mouth of the cup a full lap and change. Freeze dried coffee. A fitting match for the souvenir cup and a cheap stamped spoon. A minute and a half in the microwave, a dash of crystals, a short stir and eye-jack on the quick. Rinse and repeat. A life in the spending. Well, it’s better than the vending machine swill thirty years on the graveyard shift served up.

 

You’d think that much time devoted to a company would have been rewarded with proper coffee. Not talking Starbucks here, just a decent machine, clean water and the fixings.

 

The spoon made the muted sound of tin sliding on wet glass coming to a stop near the cups handle. “Where’s my molasses”? I mumble to myself. Fakes a pretty good dark roast in a pinch. Then so would some dried chicory root. A thing learned from Depression Era parents.

 

Yep, there it is. In the back of the cupboard. Rabbit standing proud in an early twentieth century suit on the green label hurling me back six decades. This bottle is old.

 

“Who does your daddy work for?” My mother would ask in a lilting baby voice.

 

Proudly I would reply in the toothless voice of a 4 year old, thumbs under the suspenders of my railroader bibs, “ Ber Abbot, Pickens Ford, CB-abbits”. Or in grown up English, “Brier Rabbit; Penick & Ford, Cedar Rapids”, (Iowa).

 

The Molasses Rabbit was painted on a large corn syrup storage tank around the corner from the starch plant time office. It was something I could remember.  I never did get lost but the often repeated chide groomed me none the less for the possibility. At least they would know where to take me. Everyone knew the Rabbit. Everyone knew dad. Beside, mom thought it cute.

 

Dad worked decades of night shifts and drank coffee by the quart working another eight hours on cars to make both ends meat; pun, and another depression reference. Still does. Drink coffee by the quart that is.  Apples and trees and all that it seems, but I digress.

 

I’m closer to the back gate than the front porch. My mind wanders as objects, sounds, smells pass triggering memories that are the Cliff Notes of my life. Like the ceramic coffee mug I lift to sip a sip. Came from a road side restaurant called Sun’n Sand on old US Rt 66 in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. The intersection where I would turn south toward El Paso on my way back from my parents place. A trip I made all to infrequently. It was a day’s journey from there to home and the grind. Two days from the folks.

 

Fact is, everything triggers a memory. Maybe, it’s all I really own. Soon enough, even that will be gone. I know now why mom kept a lock of each child’s hair and art projects and such. Seemed odd at the time I discovered them rummaging the layers of her memories in her hope chest as a preteen, and mom barking, “Get out of my things” from the opposite end of the house. How did she know?

 

Her voice would echo again when we visited that chest for the last time at her passing. Put my heart in my throat; the memory of that stout shout.

 

Dad in a distant look says, “If the harness is laid out right and you give me a team that won’t kick me out of the barn; bet I can still harness the team in ten minutes”! He’s holding a buckle from Mae’s harness. One of a pair of matched Morgan’s grandpa farmed with. It was his job as a child. In that moment he still is. “Damn”! he says, “Coffee went cold”.

 

He sets his tin cup on the oil burner in the garage sorting his memories and cleaning house. He’s leaving none of his precious things to strangers.

 

The memory pops like a soap bubble  as the wife walks in asking, “Your taking me out for dinner”? Noting nothing has been started. I set the full cup down….grab my coat and smile…...

 

“Yes Dear”.  Coffee can wait.       

Edited by Grumpy Bear
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  • 3 weeks later...

You have an awesome talent and intellect.  And Karnut - be reminded that the animals that you tolerate are indeed God’s creatures.  

 

I guess im in the mood. Thanks Internet forum buddies.  

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  • 3 weeks later...

“Why is the cats door nearly closed”, pushing the door open with her foot; hands full with the kitties evening feeding.

 

It was quite before she…never mind... “To keep Rex out of the cat pan and their food” I dead pan for the umpteenth time. Games on.

 

“That’s so unfair. They shouldn’t be held captive to that beast”! It’s turned from a long simmering dislike and approaching a full on boil over in record time. Somethings a miss.  

 

I try reason, my favorite tool. “No one is captive to anything dear. It’s closed just enough to keep Rex out and yet allow the kitties free and unfettered access to anything their little hearts’ desire”. Did I hold my smirk well enough?

 

For whatever reason unknown to me Rex will not go through a door that is open less than his chest width. I don’t’ have to lock his kennel, just push the door close to closed and he’ll stay there till cows come home and pigs are flying no matter what the enticement or need. The exception to this rule, there are always exceptions, is a dog door that hinges from the top. We don’t have one but our neighbors do for Travis; Rex’s 17 year old Lab mix playmate whose got quite the ‘Pup Palace’.  

 

Upon leaving the cats room she doesn’t close it back to Rex Proof dimensions her hands still full. Louise gets feed in the garage accessed further down the hall. 1/8 can to 4 cats twice a day.

 

No one asked me but if they did I’d tell them it smells the same at either end of the cat. This tasks takes precisely the amount of time it takes Rex to smell the treat from the off end of the house, travel to it, fend a cat off his plate and steal the meal.

 

He exits the room in his best Cheshire Cat grin making a hard left, tail down and scooting away from pursuit of the frothy Sugar Bear now in full roil, “DAMN DOG”! Amended with MARTIN DO SOMEING ABOUT YOUR DOG”!

 

This baffles me always and I say so in an indirect way. “Why are you mad at a dog for being a dog”?

 

“There must be something that can be done about this!” she retorts ignoring my question completely.

 

“It’s been done dear. Simply close the door to ‘Rex Proof”. Said in a childlike sing song. A mistake perhaps?

 

Her face reddens, hands get placed hip high and the head tilts. I swear steam pours from her nostrils and spray from her lips and in a stiffened muted tone….“WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT FOR YOU”.

 

In an act of utter thoughtless stupidity I reply in full volume….

 

“BECAUSE YOUR HARDER TO TRAIN THAT HE IS?”

 

Can’t “YES DEAR” your way out of that one.    

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