My mother...

I remember the mornings, when I was older and living at home, just me with Mom. Dad had long since passed away. My room was downstairs in the half basement, right next to the kitchen. It was also the furnace room but it was large and mine and private. Even without heat, I loved that room.

We had a little dog then. Dudley. He came to us by way of my sister Terry. Someone gave him to her but when she got him home her husband wouldn't have him in their house. So he came to me. My Mom always professed hatred for that dog. Yet, every morning she would make him a piece of buttered toast all cut into bite sized pieces. And if their were green beans or gravy left over at dinner she would make me stir it into his dog food.

Every morning, it was the same routine with them. I would be sound asleep and Mom would come to the kitchen to start her coffee. In her night gown and house coat she would open  my bedroom door and Dudley would be waiting for her. She'd take him outside and chain him to the fence for a while so he could sniff the new day and eventually do his business. Then Mom would go out and get him and bring him back inside. They would have their toast and coffee together. When he was finished, Dudley would return to my bedroom but he wouldn't jump up to sleep on the bed. Not just yet. First he would sit just around the corner from the open door, just ever so slightly out of eye sight from the door...and he'd wait. My Mom would clean up her breakfast dishes and start to go back upstairs but first she would come to close my bedroom door. That's when it would happen, every morning at exactly the same time. My Mom would reach for the door knob and my dog would rush around the corner snapping, growling and yipping at her like a crotchety old man. My Mom would grab the door knob and SLAM the door shut letting out a string of expletives that would make a Teamster proud. She would always react like she didn't see it coming but it happened every single morning for about five years!

Once it was over, Dudley would casually come back to bed and go to sleep and my Mom would casually go upstairs to start her day. I would be awake by this point chuckling to myself at the shear comedy of it all.

Happy Mother's Day!