And after two angst-ridden write-ups and a distinctly NOT trivial announcement of a healthy fetus, I post a truly trivial bit of sweetness and light simply for the purpose of sharing a good laugh.
No kidding, this really happens to some people.
Yesterday was a particularly productive day for me, culinarily speaking. I baked a really good OneTwoThreeFourCake and made a whole wheat pasta casserole with oodles of dark green vegetables and fat free dairy products. How was it that I was able to do all that without barking out "Hup!" every twenty minutes? I began to wonder. Huh. The Marido must have taken the dog with him to go visit La Familia Loaiza Alfaro. He hadn't said anything, but this has become SOP for my husband.
Pippin hasn't quite grasped his place in the home organization. In his little doggie-mind, he is the Alpha Male. Noises mean intruders, and intruders mean a fight. Pippin can also be counted on to throw a fit when you leave him in a car or outside a store for... actually, duration is not important for Pippin. As soon as he sees your back, the fit starts, complete with shaking and high-pitched yelping. Then people glare at us like we've just choked our precious little pup and gutted him and left him to die alone in a ditch. Hence, three hours sans Pippin can be very relaxing. Also very productive, as in addition to the cake and the casserole I also edited two marketing letters and ran the dishwasher.
So my husband calls from the Hess station down the road. He asks, "Did you miss us?" "Us?" says me, "You, yes. Pippin, eh." "We are coming home after I get the paper. You know, there are some Costa Ricans here and they have been here three months and I didn't know about it and they are just married..."
I have trouble carrying out long conversations with people on cell phones, so I asked him to tell me about it when he got home. Fine. The premonition that my productive streak would come to a screeching halt as soon as my family got back home descended upon me and I had to make the best of my remaining minutes. We said I-love-you-bye-bye and I took the cake out of the bundt pan and d-d-d-dl-l-l-r-r-iiing there's the phone again, and again it's the husband. Ai. What?
"Mami, I need a little help of you."
"Yes Papi, what do you need," I said, preparing to do a directions search or product search or finding of Immigration Paperwork or whatever.
"The dog step on the lock and he lock me out of the car."
Silence.
Loud, long laughter.
"Mami, I am freezing my colita off here, can you get the key from the downstair? And the car is running."
"Here it is, Papito, I'm on my way."
And off I go, driving a distance I could easily have walked but for the fact that, like most Lapsed Catholics, I spend Sundays in pyjamas and slippers. It would take something quite significant to get me into anything more formal than sweatpants, and a doggie who has decided to wreak revenge by locking his human out of the car does not qualify.
Up to the Hess station I drive, and I look carefully at the door locks. They are in the up position. Looking stunned, my husband strolled around to my open car window and quietly uttered, "He unlock the door."
Open mouth silence.
Longer, louder laughter.
"He hear your car and he jump and he step on the button."
"See you at home."
On the short drive back, I thought about what would have happened had I not been home, had we not had a spare key, had it been pouring down rain, had the car been about to run out of gas and miles away from anywhere. That, you see, would not have been funny.
Not for about five years, at least.