Yesterday morning, Jade and I were home alone because Michael was out spring camping with his brother and Norris and Nanuq. I wasn’t at all ready to get up when Jade was, so I spent the first few hours of the morning reclining on the couch and on my bed while Jade played.
She had decided to put on her “Squeaky Feet” shoes, so I could hear her, even though we weren’t in the same room. I could also hear her talking to herself, and some occasional thumps as she moved things around. I did get up to check on her occasionally, but didn’t do anything to interfere with her fun. By the end of my lollygagging, she had removed almost an entire set of “Children’s Nature” books from the shelves and piled them on the floor, pretty much in the main drag that leads to the stairs. Instead of putting them away, I simply shoved them aside as we went upstairs to find a snack.
That sets the stage. Next comes the part where the boys came back from their camping trip. We looked at pictures of their adventures and Michael praised Nanuq for working so hard pulling the kicksled, which Norris rode most of the time because he’s got a gimpy knee these days. As a reward, Nanuq had been given two big chunks of salmon and a goodly portion of steak.
At some point fairly late in the evening, I suddenly remembered that today was a work day, which meant packing lunches and such. Hey, it’s been four whole days since this work thing happened; who can blame me if the routine was a little off-kilter? By the time I finished packing lunches (which I’d had to actually cook, since there were no leftovers from our extremely mediocre A&W supper-on-the-run) I flopped into bed, forgetting to put Nanuq to bed in his crate.
So, what do you get when you have a pile of books on the floor and a dog full of unfamiliar people food and free to roam the house at night? Well, Michael can tell you all about it because he stepped in it as he was coming upstairs this morning. Dog diarrhea. Multiple deposits. Most of them strategically placed on the heads of highly educational grouse, moose, bears, butterflies, and other defenseless wildlife unable to run away, bound as they were to the pages to which their likenesses were affixed.
The good news was that these being hard-cover books, some of them could actually be salvaged. It even gave me the opportunity to disinfect them, something I hadn’t done before, even though I’d bought them in a yard sale, and what was I thinking not disinfecting these books before, which might carry small pox or the plague, for all I know? Thank goodness Nanuq crapped all over them and rectified that little oversight.
Alas, not every book could be saved. Some of the effluent came in contact with not just the covers, but with the edges of the actual pages; these I did not even attempt to rescue. Fortunately, only three books had to go. Grouse was one. Alligators and woodchucks was another. How sad that these noble creatures are now extinct. At our house, anyway.
And so, I am once again reminded as to why having a tidy house is so much preferable to an untidy one. Wouldn’t you rather clean dog poo off the rug than off a pile of children’s books?
