March 28, 2020
Last night, Chicago experienced one of our first thunderstorms. It was mild, as spring showers go, with only a half hour of good rumbles. Rory (pictured here as a composed figure in the right) has developed, in his advanced age, an aversion to loud noises. And as the elder role model has passed on his phobia to Kody (the fuzzy (pun intended) figure on the left). When their unease sets in, they become as one…an eight-legged brown and white furball of whiny, nervous energy.
Sometimes, when Rory gets spooked, he will go into the laundry room, and push the door shut, trapping himself and his younger sibling, who tends to freak out extra hard when he is confined.
So last night, after the girls went to bed, I was working in the library while the skies rumbled outside. I heard a banging sound coming from the kitchen. At first I thought one of the girls had come downstairs and was messing about in the kitchen. A few minutes later I heard another series of bangs (someone looking through cabinets?). Then mostly silence, punctuated by occasional muffled thumps. Odd. Whoever was in the kitchen had been there a while. So I got up to check.
The kitchen was empty, and powder room door was closed. Ah, I thought, she’s in the bathroom…but where are the dogs? I check the laundry room. The door was still open, held against the wall by a couple gallon jugs of aquarium water. I check the office, the dining room. No dogs. I look at the bathroom door…not wanting to disturb anyone inside (after all in these times of quarantine, privacy is sacred). “Who’s in the bathroom?”, I ask quietly. In response a series of rapid thumps, a pair of distinctive, rapid huffing sounds, and a growly moan. I open the door, and both dogs come racing out! The air in the room is hot and moist, and reeks of dog slobber. The floor has dropplets of water everywhere, and the toilet is half empty…
So it appears, Rory tried to close the laundry room door, failing that because of the water-jug doorstop, he fled to the bathroom, with Kody in tow, got them both inside and shut the door. Now, trapped in the dark, Kody got really worked up, and survival instinct kicked in…they began drinking water.
Idiots.