The Meaning of Love
I woke up slowly with her arms around me. My eyelids were heavy and slightly stuck together. A cold nose to my back and dancing paws on the bed put an end to any morning snuggles. We stumbled to the kitchen and made coffee whilst the milling dogs made their repeated attempts to ram home their demands by pacing from us to the front door. Walk. Walk. Walk. Now.
There was no time for a walk.
It was still early. The tendrils of sleep continued to tug on my consciousness at inconvenient moments. My limbs felt heavy and my brain felt slow. In this state I usually just spill my coffee or drop my toast (why does it always land buttered side down?) but sometimes something much worse happens.
I had four dogs with me. My charming and forever helpful girlfriend offered to take one of them out to the van while I dealt with the other three. I gave her the foster dog who didn’t yet know any commands other than ‘out’ and ‘no’. He was lame as he had hurt his toe a few days before. They awkwardly shuffled out of the front door together. It is relevant to mention that she was wearing nothing, except for a large T-shirt, which barely covered her sexy, voluptuous butt when she was standing upright.
I grabbed at my shaggy boy’s collar as I tried to get out of the front door. I juggled my keys to unlock the van before my girlfriend got to it. The other two dogs were trusted but I had a good hold on the bad shaggy dog. Or so I thought. I stepped over the threshold and when I looked up, the two dogs I ‘trusted’ had disappeared and fled right up the road.
I guess they knew I wasn’t going to take them for a walk. They wanted a quick and dirty adventure. The dog who I was holding gave his neck a quick twist and my grip was broken. It was one of those sleep tendrils interfering with my hand. I ran down the driveway to see all three of them running, ears pinned back, shoulder to shoulder down the footpath at a very fast clip. It was like they were racing. I called out to them but none of them wanted to risk losing the race by turning their heads towards my voice. They hit the end of the street and turned right, out of view.
“We need the car!” girlfriend yelled whilst wrangling the foster dog who she hadn’t managed to get into the van yet.
I tried to throw her my keys but my powers of coordination had escaped me and I threw them underhand. They looped up into the sky and hit an overhanging tree branch a couple of meters from me. They were deflected unceremoniously into the long, dead grass on the street verge.
She tilted her head, her eyes saying, “oh come on now”.
“Now I have lost sight of them! How about you put him in the van and I’ll drive.”
She walked the hobbling, giant dog back to the van. She bent over and hefted his 31 kilogram bulk into the back. I saw a beautiful moon.
I jogged over to the driver’s side and she climbed into the passenger seat.
“This street links up to mine.”
We wound down our windows and she spotted something up the street.
“Or it could have been nothing, you know I am blind.”
I turned down the street and all three of them were there, having a great old time sniffing in someone’s front yard. Two of them were on the passsenger side of the car. Girlfriend’s side. She jumped out without thinking and opened the side door. Two jumped in but the third who is a decade old was not going to jump in under her own power.
I could hear girlfriend calling to the dog, and then she addressed someone else, a bystander who must have been in their front yard.
“Oh we had a jailbreak this morning.”
“You are going to have to pick her up,” I called through the open window. “The others may just jump out if you don’t.”
I had forgotten about the lack of underwear for that brief moment. Girlfriend did as I asked and picked up the dog. She slid the side door closed and joined me in the cab again.
“The neighbours just saw my gash.”
I just looked at her pretty blue eyes and laughed. Only she would have done this for me. I should have made her the getaway driver. Finally my brain was waking up but it was too late to save her dignity!
This is love.
