As usual, stumbling bleary eyed from the bedroom The first thing I have to deal with is my three dogs After hours of them being confined to the house Thy greet me immediately And let me know in no uncertain terms What they want from me
Before I even left the bedroom I would slip on some sweats Before the dogs were put out I made sure my slippers were on The last was no small detail The
three dogs would always run over my feet In
their haste to leave the premises Three
sets of paws could do some damage Each
dog weighed over sixty pounds
This morning I had a crisis Right in front of my eyes The screen door latch Was
dislodged by one of the dogs: Atilla was
the only dog Who knew how to "pop"
open the door The latch, somehow, disappeared The door would not open I could not find the latch Anywhere
Atilla the Hun was twirling rapidly in perfect circles Each time moving sideways a little bit Frantic to do his thing outside
Coco, the other black "pup", Was wiggling excitedly In
every which direction
Their Mom the golden retriever Simply was voicing her disapproval That this was taking so long Hurting my ears
I went to plan B I rummaged through a drawer In the kitchen Searching
for a pair of pliers There is a reason
I call this drawer miscellaneous Everything
is thrown in there Of course I did not
find what I was looking for
By now the dogs were crazy And
so was I I had to quickly find the toilet To relieve myself Or have an accident On the floor And
then continued my search For something,
somewhere To open the door
Finally, after discarding several tools In my tool box as inappropriate I grabbed a vise grip Hoping
it would do the job
It worked The dogs in a flash vanished Into the yard
Hours later I am still
looking For the knob
I know my wife will be curious When
she gets up Why a vise grip is hanging From our screen door
When
she noticed, I promised her this poem When she got back From her errands
P.S. I just read
this poem To my wife She walked over to the door And pulled the missing latch Out of a partially open Deluxe
scrabble game Nearby She found it In ten seconds flat
Siggy
THE
GAS PUMPS
The three gas pumps were crowded. It was the final day Of
their current promotion.
After 10
minutes Of inching along, I was primed to be next. The car before me Was "a boat"-- Big,
to say the least.
The driver, an old lady, Did everything in slow motion. She INCHED to the pump Then
she was AT the pump For minutes-- She could not figure out How to use it.
She SLOWLY made her way To
the Booth, Then back to the pump. The attendant set the pump.
It took her FOREVER To put the hose In
her gas tank.
First she had To take the gas cap off. It took over A minute To get
the hose And bring it Back to the car And FINALLY pump her gas.
She finished And SLOWLY,
very SLOWLY, Made her way to the pay booth. It took her even longer To walk back to her car. FINALLY she closed the door And she took even LONGER To
turn the ignition key. FINALLY, she pulled
out And I was next.
Watching her performance, I
forwarded the clock 15 or 20 years One day there might be someone In back of ME Waiting for ME to finish And
thinking the same thing, "Why is HE
doing everything In SLOW MOTION?"
Old age is not that far away. That is all I could think of As she drove off.
