Home Alone

My girls are going on a trip without me. Theoretically, this shouldn’t be an issue, but I’ve only been alone one night in the last twenty years, so theory may not hold up.

My lovely daughter describes a rather grim expectation of what will occur while her mother and she are at volleyball camp. According to her, the fish, frogs, lizards, snails and dog will die. This is clearly hyperbole, but the dog does look visibly nervous. I’ve been given explicit instructions on how to care for the mushroom farm, seventeen times, but overheard her conspiring with her grandmother to transfer it to her house while they’re gone. Neither I nor the dog know quite how to take this conspiracy, but the dog isn’t taking chances and has been spending the better part of the day quietly standing next to the mushroom farm presumably attempting to look like an oyster mushroom. My child also volunteered that she expected to find upon her return a “withered old cat man with four hundred cats gnawing on the toes of your carcass after you starve to death.” The dog twitched upon hearing these kind words.

For her part, my wife expects I will not wear pants for three days and admonishes that I better not leave a mess for her to clean up when she gets home. She also left an extensive honey-do list and muttered some suspicion that I would sleep in most of the morning.

Wow! I mean just wow! This type of rhetoric is shameful. The girls absolutely know better. I don’t even like cats. I’ve got a meeting that requires pants, and you can’t kill a lizard in three days. If I feed the dog one gigantic time, throw away the fast food wrappers, get out of bed, put on some pants and pull up the sheets before they get home, I’ve got it made. Anybody know the number for a good handyman, preferably one available after noon? I plan on sleeping in while I can.