TheBanyanTree: A Gonna Hafta kind of day

[Mike Pingleton]

I've been nursing a terrible head cold and when I woke up this morning, it
was still there.  Woke up late, too, having forgotten to set my alarm, since
I have a terrible head cold.  These things run in circles.  I stumbled
downstairs and realized that I was still dizzy, the head cold apparently
affecting my inner ear starting the night before.   A new experience for me,
the drunkard's walk without a drink.  I'm gonna hafta call in sick, since I
can't function much when the room is slowly awhirl.

I head to the basement to let out the dogs and I get a whiff of dog poop.  I
look at the girls in their crate, and they look up at me with that droopy
'we're sorry Dad' look.  One of them has diarrhea, and since they share the
extra large crate, they are both covered in it. I'm gonna hafta do some
major cleaning and disinfecting while my head spins.

I turn back around the other way and go wake up Molly.  "You're gonna hafta
get up early kid - the dawgs have crapped their cage and there's lots to be
done,"  Molly groans.  I go wake up Nell next.  "One of the dogs has the
trots," I said. "I'm gonna hafta get them and their crate all cleaned up by
seven-thirty."  I don't wait for a reply.  I head back down and shunt the
two dogs out the side door and then into the back yard, and before I clean
up anything else, I'm gonna hafta wipe the poop prints off the basement
stairs, which I accomplish in woozy fashion, since bending over gives me
that merry-go-round sensation.  Next is the dog crate and the plastic pan,
and as I'm cleaning the pan in the slop sink Nell pokes her head.  "What
about the car?" she asks.  The car needs service, there's a coolant leak,
and our appointment is for eight o'clock. "I can take it in - you really
need to stay home today and not drive."  I'm not going to argue with her.
"I think you're gonna hafta take care of that," I tell her.

There's no liquid Pepto, and I can't get Roxie to eat the tablets.  I get
three down Chloe, and since she's the messier of the two, I'm gonna hafta
hope I got the medicine into the right dog.  I clean Roxie's paws; she's
going into the tub first.  Thank goodness we have plenty of old clean 'dog
towels', a necessity with two golden Retrievers.  I get Roxie up into the
tub and give her a good scrubbing, bent over once again and feeling like my
head is a little bubble circling the drain.  At sixty five pounds Rox is a
three towel dog, and as I get her semi-dry gives me a relieved look that
seems to say "I feel much better now, Dad."

Chloe is next, and her bath is a thirty minute project, with my empty
stomach doing flip flops.  At ninety two pounds, she's a five towel dog;
both pups have their thick winter coats going.  I'm gonna hafta catch up
some laundry, I think.

By nine o'clock the kid is at school, the wife is at work, the car is
presumably in pieces at the garage, and I have dogs, crate, and basement all
clean.  Now I can change clothes and maybe eat a little something.  The dogs
are curled up on their beds, as if the morning was never punctuated by
catastrophe.

Now that I have added the day's events to the official record, I think I'm
gonna hafta take a nap.

Mike