That’s what they say, my humans, Shoes-on-the-floor and A-Dog. And that’s nice. Nothing better than appreciation. Of course, I always chuckle just a bit when I hear it (tough to notice since my chuckle looks and sounds a great deal like my snot-rocket, clear out my nostrils blow, but there ya go, I’m complex like that.) I chuckle because they think that my smarts begin and end with the mundane. I open the door with my nose, they are impressed. I come downstairs every night precisely at 9:00 pm and they marvel.
In truth, and we can’t say this too loud fellow woofers, I run the show here. A few examples: The bigger one, Shoes-on-the-Floor, balances the checkbook and pays the bills. I lay on the floor beside him as he grunts and moans, breathes hard and curses. Occasionally he looks over at me and says something like, “Oh.. if you only know how good you have it…lying there.. no cares at all…” No cares at all? Yah. My first care is checking his work. He gets up and goes upstairs and I check his math. Once he added the mortgage payment to the balance instead of subtracting it. Another time, he backed up his books to the ‘H’ drive.. we don’t even have and ‘H’ drive! And that isn’t even the half of it…
They never wonder how the piano stays in tune… or realize that they haven’t changed a light bulb since 2005. I must say it is tougher now to keep them buttoned up since A-Dog spends more time at home. Used to be I could do all my work between 9 and 5 when they were away, but now I have to check out her daybook and his schedule and plan accordingly. Hey it’s nothing I can’t handle. I just have to careful and not try to do too much.
One time, I was swapping out a spark plug on the lawnmower and dropped the wrench… made a big noise and they came out to the garage and I was almost busted. Had to knock over the garbage can to make it look good. Last week I was filling out camp forms for the little ones and I couldn’t remember a phone number so I had to open Shoes-on-the-Floor’s cellphone. I changed his ring while I was there and that raised some suspicions – couldn’t take ‘Call Me’ by Blondie another minute. He thinks he’s being clever, but as much as I love him, he sometimes gives himself just a little too much credit.
So, I play it cool… help when I can, but not so much that they won’t learn enough to one day do it for themselves. Next project – how to re-tile the kitchen without them noticing….
