As a result of moving my desk from my desk to my new Costco couch (more about this another day), I get to more intimately experience the relationship between my mother (who lives in the apartment attached to our kitchen) and my dog, who is old.
My mother is old, too. But, please, do not tell her I wrote this. Once I called her old and then for my 32nd birthday she gifted me with a "How to Reverse Aging" book and I know it was a very aggressive reminder that, I, too, was aging and to keep my mouth shut.
Anyway, my mother has an "open door" policy, meaning her door is open at all times so we can hear her on the phone with my Aunt Barbara Ann or the bank or telling scam artists that she "DID NOT ENTER A CONTEST FOR A CRUISE AND I WILL NOT GIVE YOU MY SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER" or just pressing the buttons on her Jitterbug phone which makes noises like a real corded phone from 1990. We also hear every show that airs on CBS 3 nearly around the clock (this is the only channel she watches). Her open door policy also applies to the pets (and once some mice, but I really CANNOT EVER TALK ABOUT THAT). Our old man dog Henry is always in there--because my mom will give him half her sandwich. Then Henry will take the other half of her sandwich when she isn't looking.
And then the reprimanding begins.
My mother does not simply tell the dog,"NO," instead, she delivers a long, comprehensive lecture on why the dog should not take her sandwich and includes the guilt I remember from my childhood about all the things she now has to rearrange to make another sandwich and the price of bread and how it is bad manners to steal a sandwich and then she ends with "WHY DID YOU DO THAT HENRY?"
Henry does not answer, at least to my knowledge.
So, my mom continues. Today, during the lecture, Henry apparently took the leftover cheese slices on my mom's plate while she was washing her hands. Which led my mother to literally scream, "WHY!"
Henry apparently just laid down and curled up for a nap, because I heard my mom say "HOW CAN YOU SLEEP?"
I mean, he is a dog and he is old, so he really has very few cares.
I should also note, that Henry is now nearly, entirely deaf. He does not hear a word of this.
I told my mother this, again, and she said:
"Your father claimed to be deaf, but we all know that was an exaggeration."
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