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| What? |
Well, for over a month, Sister and I worked together to retain control over our air conditioner. Sometimes we stayed mum to avoid drawing attention to the magic cooling box in the window. Sometimes, we whined piteously about how hot it was and boasted about how we would cool off in the air conditioning while the rest of the family sat around and sweat.
But then Sister became a turncoat. She started complaining to Pa that it was getting cold at night and that the air conditioner in the window was letting the cold air in. Then, two days ago, Pa caved to Sister’s whining and climbed the stairs to her room armed with the empty air conditioner storage box.
Hot on his tail, I scurried up the stairs after Pa and watched in disbelief and horror as he removed the air conditioner from Sister’s window. Inconsolable, I threw myself down in the doorway between Sister’s room and the hallway and did something that I never ever do on the second floor: I lay quietly.
You see, when I was an obnoxious little puppy with large gnashing teeth and a bad attitude, I used to get into an awful lot of trouble upstairs because I was under the impression that I could be extra bad when I was up there (I mean, I was a juvenile delinquent on the main floor and how I acted there paled in comparison to how I acted on the second floor). In fact, my family even had a daily warning for me. “First floor rules apply,” they’d say. Eventually, when I finally outgrew my terror years, most trips upstairs resulted in at least one howling/screaming/barking/snout-rubbing/digging session. Why? Why not? It’s fun! And since my family’s been working from home, those sessions have only increased in intensity and frequency (I particularly enjoy howling and carrying on through Pa’s daily four o’clock conference call).
Anyway, there was no howling/screaming/barking/snout-rubbing/digging at this moment. No, I just lay there despondently mourning the loss of my air conditioner and reflecting on Pa and Sister’s ultimate betrayal.
But then I heard the words: “Uh, Bud, could you get up?” Pa was behind me having pushed the air conditioner, in its box, from the window to the threshold of the room. The air conditioner’s winter resting place was the room just down the hall, however, I lay between Pa and the air conditioner and the other room. “Bud?” he repeated and I lazily lifted my head and looked up at him with my big brown eyes. “Think you can move?” he asked. I blinked twice, lowered my head to rest my chin on my paw, and sighed a deep drawn out sigh.
It was at that moment that Pa realized that this was not me being ornery or lazy. No, this was me standing up (by way of lying down) in protest over the loss of my beloved air conditioner.
