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Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Inconvenient Sense Of Duty
Last night exhaustion somehow sneaked by the evil little no-sleep application in my brain circuitry. I slept for much of the night.
Then at 5:00 A.M. I woke up to find Pork Chop sitting on top of the covers beside me, looking into my face, making small worried noises. This does not happen. Once I actually get into bed for the night, Porkee is down under the covers fast asleep. That dog is a champion sleeper. She can go to sleep on a dime, BOOM! she's asleep. Any time I sit down, she's immediately on my lap and asleep. Especially, though, if I put on my nightgown and climb into bed, that's it for LaPork until the next morning. Not so, though, for me. Which is why I leave the TV on all night. I need something to think about besides the ideas whirling around and around in my head like hamsters on a little wheel.
So there it was, the almost-crack of dawn, and on TV some silly guy asked people questions about the most abvious things, apparently trying to prove that his "guests" were idiots since they knew nothing about anything. And there was Porketty ChopChop worrying audibly into my face. Once in a while, to emphasize her distress, she raised a tiny paw and patted my face. Well, this was just entirely unheard-of behavior. Still sleepy, but curious, I sat up and asked her, "What's the matter?"
She hopped down off the bed and went to stand in the hallway at the top of the stairs, looking back at me as if to say, "Come ON!"
My gracious. There had to be something terrible going on that I didn't know about.
I groaned my way out of bed and down the stairs. Aha. Half-way down the stairs, I began to hear it, some kind of dreadful wailing. The farther I was from the upstairs TV, the better I heard it. Terrible screams and wails of the most extreme kind. Shocking.
I peeked out from between the blinds into the street. Nothing. No little lost child trying to get help. Hm. What could be the problem?
Then I got it. That had to be two mating raccoons. They make noises like crying, screaming children...very much like mating cats only much more so and louder. I have heard this all before. At the farm in Pa. sometimes on a summer night I have heard those hideous, hair-raising screams and yowls from the woods. Raccoons in reproductive mode.
So what was I to do? Pork Chop had no idea what made that noise but she felt obliged to go outside and shut it down. She was at the door, shivering and shaking, scared, if also determined to do her dogly duty. I tried to hush her up, but no luck. The more I tried to quiet her, the louder she barked and raged. That noise had to GO. She, Porkee, as the only dog around, needed to do something about the howls and yowls.
Well, I wasn't going to get any rest unless I took her out, but I worried that her barking would wake the neighbors. Also, I feared that the raccoons might take it into their heads to do battle with a chihuahua at the other end of a leash from me. I could see where the raccons were because my neighbor to the rear has motions sensor lights over his garbage cans. Those light had turned on and off several times in the moments since I came downstairs. Way too close for comfort.
Finally, I just grabbed the leash and out we went.
Porkee did NOT bark. She very quietly growled her way around the yard until satisfied that whatever bad things were out there did not inhabit the space for which she feels responsible. Also, there was no further noise from the raccoons.
So, we came back indoors and went upstairs again to bed. Porkee was instantly asleep. I watched re-runs.
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