Lighter Side #3 - Keeping Up Appearances

Again, it started with a phone call. This time from Tennessee....

“Hey Sarah,” my parents’ voices were excited. “We can’t wait to see you and Jay in a couple weeks. Our plane will arrive on Saturday.”

Wait, me and Jay? They were expecting him to be home! What could I do? After I hung up, a plan began to take shape.

It wasn’t too hard to find Jay. His collar GPS indicated he was frequenting the campground at Walker Pass. With my usual tools (Snickers bars and Benadryl), it wasn’t long before we were both headed back to Gardnerville in my car. I figured if I kept Jay mildly sedated, I could pass things off as normal.

The visit went fairly well. “Jay’s awful quiet, and he seems to be drooling a lot,” my mother commented when we were alone. “Oh, it must be because he just had some dental work done,” I replied. One night, I guess the sedatives wore off a little. The next morning my father asked, “Did you hear howling last night?” Thinking fast, I explained, “Oh that was just the neighbor’s dog. Sometimes it sounds like he’s right in the house with us.”

Jay during visit: purveyor of sparkling conversation



It was really quite easy to control Jay during the weekend. Every time he started to move or moan, I would slip him a small Snickers Bar on the sly. That would usually satisfy him for a few hours. Luckily, my parents left before I returned to work, because after work on Monday, I got a call from one of the neighbors:

“Mrs. Bigelow?”

“Yes.”

“I hate to say anything, but your husband seems to have gotten loose.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. He ran through my back yard a while ago. I wouldn’t mind, but it bothers my dog.”

“I’m sorry, I’ll adjust his..., er, I mean...I’ll talk to him.”

Well, it was obviously time to return Jay to the mountains, at least until my summer vacation. I just don’t have the time to supervise him while I’m working, you see. I returned him to Walker Pass, and watched from a distance as he emerged from his stupor. I figure the whole thing probably just felt like a dream to him. Hopefully things will settle down for a while now, at least until school is out.