Worst Case Scenario

So, lately, my dog Sweetpea has taken to barking a lot at night. A lot. A lot lot. And it's very annoying. At our old house we could go outside and tell her to "HUSH!" and she would. Now, not so much. Now you can tell her to hush and she will. Until she hears the next little sound and then she's off again. She doesn't even know what she's barking at. She's just barking.

While we're up it's not too big of a deal. But at night. Good grief. She barks and barks and barks and barks. Thank God we don't' really have any neighbors to speak of or I'm sure we'd be on their you-know-what list.

Occasionally I get up to tell her to hush, but honestly? Most of the time? I don't know what she's barking at either. It might be a coyote. It might be raccoon. It might be a crazed serial killer (out for a pleasure cruise at night, in eel infested waters) who has wandered through the woods and found our house sitting out here in the dark and lonely woods, miles from help.

Yeah, that's how my mind works.

It doesn't help matters that one of my favorite stories as a child was about Little Dog Turpy. See, Little Dog Turpy lived with a little old man and a little old woman. And every night he would bark and bark and bark and every night, the little old man would go out and cut off a piece of Little Dog Turpy in an effort to get him to stop barking until one night, there's nothing left of Little Dog Turpy. And that's when the Hobyahs come in and steal the old man's wife. They carry her off in a sack singing:

Hobyahs Hobyahs we can brag.
The little old woman is in our bag.
We're as proud as we can be.
Forever more our cook she'll be.

They've been coming up to the house every night, but every night Little Dog Turpy's barking kept them away. Eventually, the little old man puts Little Dog Turpy back together again, but really, hasn't the damage already been done? If I were the wife and Little Dog Turpy, I'd be heading out.

I've pretty much always been a worrier. Once, when I was pregnant with Bubba and Mr. Daddy was still managing a Starbucks, we got a call in the middle of the night from the alarm company -- the alarm was going off at Starbucks. At that time (and this might still be the policy -- I have no idea), managers were required to go to the store and see why the alarm was going off. Usually it was something small, the alarm could be reset and Mr. Daddy would be back within a half hour.

But not that night. An hour passed. Then another half hour. I started thinking the worst. The robbers had lain in wait for Mr. Daddy, tripping the alarm just so he would come and then they would rob him and force him to open the safe. I was tempted to call the store, but then they would know that someone was wise to their plan. Maybe they would kill Mr. Daddy to cover their tracks!

While I dithered -- swinging wildly from "Oh my God he's lying there dead" to "Surely there's some kind of rational explanation" -- I was also planning the lawsuit I was going to file against Starbucks for requiring that their managers check on alarms, leaving my unborn child fatherless!! My rich poor fatherless child!Sob!

Finally, I called the police non-emergency number and asked if the patrol officer on duty could drive by the store and check on Mr. Daddy. And if he was alive, to please call home. About five minutes later Mr. Daddy called. Someone had thrown a brick through one of the windows and Mr. Daddy was having to wait on the glass company. He had assumed I had gone back to sleep.

Yeah, riiiight.

So. You see. It's important for me to let Sweetpea bark. You just never know what's out there.