Nothing, we discover, but an eight-pound bag of fur and insecurity.
Last week, for instance, I suggest to my wife that we could spend a leisurely few days driving to North Carolina to visit the Biltmore Estate, which is a Chateauesque-styled mansion with 250 rooms, including 34 bedrooms and 43 bathrooms.
“I’ve been looking forward to seeing that for a long time,” she agrees. “But what about the dog?”
“He’s never shown much interest in Chateauesque architecture. I think he’s more of an English Tu...”
“I meant, what are we going to do with him while we’re gone?” she asks.
“Can’t we just board him at a kennel?”
“Don’t say k-e-n-n-e-l,” she cautions. “He’ll have an anxiety attack.”
“How about if we take him with us?”
“What do we do with him while we’re touring the mansion?” she asks.
“I’m sure we could leave him at the motel for a few hours.”
“A few hours? You can’t see everything there is to see in a house that size in just a few hours.”
“Maybe we could only look at 30 of the bathrooms.”
This isn’t the first time the dog has been the orange barrel on our road to freedom. Instead of us visiting my stepson and his wife in Oregon, my wife goes alone and I stay home to keep the dog company. When it’s time for a trip to Virginia to see the grandtwins, I visit them and she stays home with the dog. It’s been years since our kids have seen us together, and my guess is that they probably suspect we got divorced a long time ago.
“How about this?” I suggest. “You drive to North Carolina this week, and I’ll stay home with the dog. Then I’ll drive to North Carolina next week and you can stay home with the dog. After that we can get together and look at each other’s photos.”
“We’re just going to have to pay someone to stay at our house with him while we’re gone,” she decides.
Which is, of course, what we do. So added to the cost of gas, meals, motel rooms and tickets to see the 43 bathrooms is the cost of hiring someone to stay at our house so the dog won’t be lonely while he sleeps for 20 hours a day.
Who knew freedom would be so expensive?
Contact D.L. Stewart at dlstew_2000@yahoo.com.
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