Don’t worry, I haven’t decided to start writing Harry Potter Fan Fiction. And yeah, it’s been a rather long time since I bothered to put fingers to keys to add to this blog, but sometimes life throws things at you that simply need to be shared. Well, They make me want to share them, you might disagree.
Anyway, I digress before I’ve ever started.
Way back at Christmas, our thoughtful offspring gave us a
robot vacuum as a gift. Now I can’t say with certainty whether that was
intended to be a labour-savour, to look after us as we head toward our dotage
or commentary of what they think of the general hygiene standards in our house.
Either way, at least they were thoughtful enough to get us gift!
Not long after it was first set up, I nicknamed the vacuum
Dobby. It provides for fun moments when you lift it off the floor mid-vacuum
and the announcement comes over the google speaker “Someone has picked Dobby
up. Put Dobby down!” Yes, I’m easily amused.
Like most house elves, Dobby generally goes about his
business in the morning before there’s too much activity around the place and without
any real appreciation for his efforts (unless one walks around barefoot).
Of course before we had Dobby, we had a dog. Elise didn’t really
know what to think of Dobby initially, but before long, learned that if she
just ignored it, there wasn’t really any issue.
It’s my fault we have a dog. I was the one that wanted one
and I was the one that like all small children, promised to feed it and clean
up after it and do everything required. Which mostly (more often that not, but
not as often as Caroline would like), happens.
It certainly means if there’s any little accidents around
the house, I am guaranteed to be cleaning it up unless I’ve managed to escape
interstate for work or something.
Elise’s most annoying bad habit is probably because she’s a
terrier and not exactly high on the IQ scale. If she sees or senses something in
the back yard, especially say a lizard or possum, she barks at it (Thunder too,
because its been proven if you bark long enough at Thunder it stops. Every. Single.
Time) and she has the single-minded focus I can only assume comes with small-dog
sized intelligence. That’s lead to a few notes in letter boxes and complaints
from neighbours when she’s been particularly vigilant in defending our
territory when we’re not home.
To circumvent this, we usually leave her inside when we’re
out for an evening (she gets to watch whatever she wants on TV though and we
pretend she doesn’t ever sleep on the couch when we’re not home).
Saturday night was one of those nights. We went to a function
and came home late, let her out then put her to bed and headed that way
ourselves. After something of a sleep in (partying is getting harder and we
need recovery I tell you) we went about the business of Sunday.
Emily was getting her clothes from the airer when she claimed
something smelled a bit like off cheese or something. I told her about the
dog-vomit I’d found (and cleaned up – Yee-haw) when I first got up and
suggested that could have been it, though I couldn’t smell anything anymore and
hadn’t seen anything else to concern me.
If only it had stayed that way. Half an hour or so later when
I was a bit more active, I found the cause. Apparently in some sort of protest
about poor-treatment and a lack of opposable thumbs to operate the TV remote,
the dog had crapped inside as well. It wasn’t overly extensive, but given it
was by this time at least 12 hours old, it was disturbingly still wet. She’d
even managed to drop it on the old rug we had out to protect the floor from the
office chair Caroline had been using when working from home.
Armed with disinfectant and paper towel, I sucked things up
and cleaned up, surprised to find that it had been smeared over the floorboards
as well. At that point I would quite happily have throttled the dog or fed her
to a rabid goat. Lucky for her I couldn’t find a goat and didn’t want any more
mess to clean up. I was most puzzled as to how she’d managed to smear it all
over the place though not in a mood to ask polite questions. I had places to
be. I sucked it up and kept cleaning.
Fast forward to Monday morning and as I was getting for
work, poor unappreciated Dobby was going about his business with his usual vigour
and noise. Something was a bit different this morning though. There was
something of an unpleasant odour wafting around the little bugger.
I didn’t immediately put two and two together (though I’m
sure you witty lot are already cringing in anticipation of what comes next). It
was only when I was just about to leave for work that it dawned on me. Horribly,
smelly, gut-wrenching recollections solidified in my mind and joined together
to paint a Pro-Hart-esque picture. The sort of picture smeared across our glorious
floorboards.
When I’d made it out of bed on Sunday it was after Dobby
had finished his morning routine. Yes, Dobby had been dutifully cleaning before
I found the dog’s delightful surprise. Needless to say I high-tailed it off to
work.
Not entirely heartless though, I warned Caroline and knew
that I’d get to look forward to it when I came home.
Now I should wax lyrical about the joys of that exercise,
but I won’t paint the full Pro-Hart-esque beauty that Dobby left for me. Let me
just say that until Sunday, Dobby’s greatest enemy was hair. When one has a
daughter with fourteen foot long blonde tresses its really a daily hazard for
all of us. But when you’re the one that bothers to clean the floor, it is your unavoidable
foe. So for the final image, just picture me pulling apart Dobby to get to his
insides … the brushes and rollers and surfaces that have both cleared the floor
of those lovely blonde tresses that lost the will to hang on to Emily’s head …
and dutifully attempted, though failed to clear the floor of the dog’s delightful
gift.
Your welcome.
