January 24, 2012 – Bailey

There is a chocolate lab puppy down the road.  I call him a puppy because he can’t quite be 6 months old yet but he’s larger than the beastly boy.  I can’t imagine how big he will be when he finishes filling out.   His name is Bailey.  Bailey wants desperately to play with Ernie.  Ernie “thinks” he wants to play.  That is until Ernie gets near Bailey and Bailey in his puppy exuberance can’t contain himself and jumps at Ernie.  That makes Ernie cranky and he gets that look on his face that says “What the hell was I thinking?” and then he refuses to look at the puppy, turning his face left and right.  You can just see the bubble forming over the boy’s head “If I pretend I don’t see him, he’ll go away….”  Yea, that’s not happening.  So the boy resorts to that low growl.  If you are familiar with dogs, you know the one.  It says, “Hey I get you are a puppy and I don’t want to hurt you, but get off me.”  It makes me think of car rides with my siblings when we were younger and my Mom had to listen to us “Stop touching me… he’s touching me… make him stop touching me.”

What’s the puppy doing during all this growling and ignoring?  Bouncing around like he has ants in his pants saying to himself “He doesn’t mean it.  I’m cute… I’m cute, I’m cute.  Play with me, play with me, playwithmeplaywithmeplaywithmeplaywithme.”

I can’t even remember the last time I felt all brimming with “play with me” exuberance.  Maybe I’m just old and I’ve decided it’s a Bob Marley kind of day where I play “Waiting in Vain” over and over.

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