So there’s the weird, alternate universe, sorta like The Twilight Zone, that only opens up and sucks me in WHEN BRYAN ISN’T HOME.  And I’m sure it doesn’t even appear when I’M NOT HOME, so Bryan really does think I make this shit up.  But I couldn’t make this shit up.  Even if I wanted to.  BUT WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD?!

The morning was fine, initially.  I got up at 5:30 and crawled into the shower, after corralling the dogs outside to handle their bidness. (Willie will now FINALLY use the dog door to go outside.  But he hasn’t figured out to come back in yet.) I got out of the shower, made Binja’s bottle and set it aside, and fed the dogs.

We have folding track doors to our pantry.  We’ve never had a pantry before, period, much less one large enough to use folding doors.  One thing we’re learning to do (usually the hard way) is to shut the doors entirely.  If we leave them ajar, even a little bit, Charlie has figured out he can stick his nose in there and weasel them open.

But, I’d like to note, I closed them after feed the dogs.

I heard Binja stirring, and went and fed him.  Our morning was fairly routine after that, with me getting ready as he played in the floor, and us talking to eachother throughout the house.  Nothing out of sorts there.

But I did go back into the pantry for a ziplock bag for his daycare bottles.  And, perhaps, this is when the pantry did not get shut all the way.

Bags were packed, I was dressed, Binja was dressed, and we were just about to walk out of the door when I thought, “Oh, I should put some water outside for the dogs.”  I had made sure that their water dish INSIDE was VERY full, but I hadn’t checked the water outside.

I put Binja on the floor in the kitchen, where he often sits as I cook, and sauntered outside.  I see Charlie huddled over a loaf of bread, which he has obviously absconded with from the pantry.  And something about his demeanor makes me weary.

Charlie is our aggressive dog.  When we first got him, he was fairly unstable.  Food was especially a hot-button issue, and we still have tussles every now and again. (He is, after all, a dog.) But Bryan and I are dog-whisperers, and we usually can resolve the issue by dominating him.

But there was something amiss about him this morning.

I approached him, with Willie and Mabel circling, and he began furiously growling and snarling at me.  He turned his face to me and I saw a deep laceration under his eye.  It was so deep, in fact, that the skin was peeling back.  So there had obviously been a fight over the bread, and Charlie had taken some heat.

The other dogs finally scattered inside and I somehow managed to get Charlie to approach me.  His eye was bad, so I led him inside to the kitchen, where I meant to clean his wound and lock him in while I retrieved the rest of the loaf. 

Guess who had crawled over to the dogs’ water dish?  The one I had so dutifully filled to almost overflowing?  And had dumped it over his head, and all over the kitchen?

THE BINJA.

(Guess who was also mightily pissed?  That would also be THE BINJA.)

So I let Charlie go, who immediately scrambled outside to his bread.  I swoop up the baby, who soaked down to his diaper and squawling, and redress him.  Since I need him confined (WHO IS THIS MOBILE CHILD?!), I throw him in the crib.  Screaming.  In his crib.

I mop up what I can of the kitchen.  I never realized how much water that bowl truly holds.

Charlie is again outside, huddling over his bread, but again, his demeanor is highly aggressive.  I decided to locate a long stick to try and separate him and the bread, and he went apeshit on the stick, gnashing and growling and teeth and fur and anger and there is nowayinhelleventhisdogwhispererisgettinginthere.  Cesar Milan, you can kiss my ass.

I left with Willie and Mabel locked inside, and Charlie (open wound and all) huddled over his bread, getting all my precious my presssshusss with the leftover loaf.  Binja fell asleep the minute the car hit the road, and I have never in my life considered adding whiskey to my coffee as much as I did this morning. 

This is one of my most cherished comedy pieces EVER, partly because David Hyde Pierce is simply a comedic genius when it comes to pratfalls and physical comedy, but also because this comedy of errors is part of my daily life WHEN BRYAN ISN’T HOME.