It was a dark and stormy night. Well, it was dark and sprinkling a little bit. But that annoying kind of sprinkle that gets your clothes all soggy.
It was quiet inside the house. Perhaps a bit too quiet. Well, not really too quiet. I mean, the TV was on. And for some reason the fridge always emitted a high-pitch squeal that could be heard throughout the rest of the house. (But everyone always ignored that sound because it probably meant the fridge was on its last legs and honestly, no one really wanted to deal with it).
On the couch sat two nervous creatures. One wide-eyed and tense because she knew what was coming. The other wide-eyed and tense because he didn’t know what was coming but since she was acting weird, he felt there was no time like the present to also act weird. So while she absent-mindedly picked at her nail polish and cast furtive glances in his direction, he awkwardly climbed on her lap, not really sitting and not really standing, but nonetheless blocking the TV from her view anyway.
They sat this way as agonizing minutes ticked by.
Tick.
Tick.
High pitch squeal from fridge.
Tick.
And then, just when she thought they might have lucked out this year, thought that maybe by some miracle the porch light had burned out, it happened. The very thing she had been dreading.
“Ding-dong!”
And that’s when all hell broke loose. Before she could stop him, he launched his (freakishly strong, by the way) 32-pound body like a rocket off her lap, hitting the floor mid-stride and doing a Scooby-Doo scramble around the corner of the coffee table until he reached the door at the top of the stairs of their second-story apartment, barking and howling the entire time like the neighborhood feral cats had finally gotten organized and were attacking the house en masse.
She, meanwhile, started calmly yelling at him to “shut up!” and “knock it the hell off!” while simultaneously trying to pull him back from the door by his collar so she could squeeze her frame through without letting him through (which, since she didn’t weigh 32 pounds, was no mean feat). This was followed by trying to close said door as he repeatedly launched his entire (freakishly lithe) body at any and all openings. After finally getting the door shut and ignoring the desperate sounds of him howling and trying to dig his way under the closed door, she made her way as quick as she could down the stairs to the front door, which she threw open to some very startled trick-or-treaters. She then breathlessly yelled “Happy Halloween!” over the clamor of what probably sounded to a small child like a dog getting murdered.
Luckily, the little kids who didn’t run away in terror at the sound of a crazed dog and the sight of an equally crazed swamp witch (and no, it wasn’t a costume, just how the woman looked without makeup on these days) got a giant fistful of candy and went on their merry way, no worse for the wear.
And then she slowly went back up the stairs, back to him, he who had finally stopped barking and was enthusiastically wagging his tail like “gee, wasn’t THAT fun!?”. They sat back down on the couch together, he once again not quite sitting, not quite standing on her lap, she once again not able to see the TV.
And they both breathed a sigh of relief.
Which was quickly followed by another “Ding-dong!”
Repeat 27 more times.
The moral of this story, kids? This Halloween, appreciate your candy. Treasure it. And try to remember through the fog of your sugar-induced mania the sacrifices many of us dog-owning adults had to go through to ensure that the candy got into your little hands.
Chick Writes Stuff 