System 13

This morning – early this morning – was not overly fun. No sir, no fun at all.

On days when I have to be at work at 7:45, I usually get up between 6 and 6:20; plenty of time to take a shower, get ready, enjoy my breakfast and (more importantly) my coffee.

This morning I was instead woken up at 20 ’til 6 by my wife.

Her: “Hey, there’s something wrong with your dog.”
Me: “Mmhmhm? Wha’? What time is it? What dog?”
Her: “Gandalf, your dog, there’s something wrong with him.”
Me: “Oh.” *blank stare* “Well. What’s wrong with him?”
Her: “He won’t go in his house, I think the thunder and lightning scared him.”
Me: “Oh.”

Let’s pause the scene there for a moment. As can probably be guessed, I wasn’t exactly, er, fully awake. I was aware that there was a lot of thunder and lightning going on outside, but I hadn’t come to the expected conclusion: it was raining. We got out of bed and meandered into the kitchen, where I looked out the back door.

Me: “It’s raining. Surely he’s in his house now!”
My wife looks at me for a moment with a look that says, “Sometimes, you’re really, really dumb.” What she actually says, though, is: “Josh, he won’t go in his house. He’s scared.”
Me: “Okay.”

I shuffled around a bit in the kitchen, looking back and forth between the door – beyond which was the dog, the rain, the cold – and the way from which I came, where ultimately, bed and a little more sleep awaited. The sleepiness in me was shouting something like “Don’t go out there, you’ll ruin your chances of falling back to sleep – you could have 40 more minutes this morning!”³³ My brain stalled at that point, and I was unable to make a decision for a few seconds. The wife prompted me, though. “Aren’t you going to bring him in?” Err… yes, yes. That’s the right thing to do. Yes. Bring the dog in.

The brain machinery lurched again and I moved on to the next thought: shoes. I need shoes to go outside in the rain. I looked around for my house shoes, which were, of course, nowhere to be found. My eyes fell on my boots. Boots with laces. Laces involved tying. No, the brain says, I’m sorry; we’re³³ just not going to do that right now. Too complicated. Alright, so the complexity of tying my shoes was out, and I couldn’t find the low-tech (i.e., no tying involved) house shoes. Alright, so I’d go without shoes. It can’t be that bad, I thought.

I grabbed my coat with a hood and stepped outside.³³ Good, I thought – it’s not raining that hard; perhaps I won’t get too wet, and I’ll be able to go back to sleep after all. I walked down our ramp, stepped onto the pavement, and at that point, I really thought I had it made. Gandalf was one step away, and then I could go back to sleep. I took that one step – at which point my left foot plunged into a 2 inch deep puddle, complete with a nice layer of mud at the bottom.

A few things happened at that moment. First, I’m pretty sure I swore something or other – maybe it was frak, maybe it was our “real world” equivalent of frak, but whatever it was, I’m fairly confident that it consisted of four letters. Second, all remaining sleepiness left in me disappeared; I think I might have heard it howl “I told you so!” as it went.

The dog was taken in and dried off, and the cold, wet, muddy foot was cleaned. I attempted to go back to bed for a measly 20 minutes. I did so in vain. I was pretty much fully awake at that point, and even if I hadn’t been, I probably would have been kept awake by the smell of wet dog, which was particularly strong. At 6:25 the alarm told me it was time to get up (again), and so I did so. Full of grumbles, yes, but I did it.

I did the usual morning ritual: I showered, got dressed, ate breakfast and drank coffee. I noticed when I was leaving that Gandalf was sound asleep. He’ll probably be that way until I get home this afternoon. For that, no dog treats for him today! (I jest, but man, it’s a good thing I love him, because if I didn’t…)3

1. In Sleepanese, of course.333
2. Am I the only person who sees my personified brain as a bunch of characters, rather than just one entity?333
3. Yes, an umbrella would have been better. Yes, we have one – a couple, actually. But the brain just wasn’t working well enough for that.333

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