a story of a lassitudes me and the subsequent suffering of a good man

Tony's first words to me this morning were, "I'm mad at you. You are a really hard sleeper". My first thought was, are you kidding me? If the kids even whisper my name, I am up. If the dog whimpers, I am awake. Apparently last night was an exception.

It wasn't Nadia waking from the horror of the playground ghost tales that have been circulating her school.

It wasn't Aidan waking to tell me of a headache, a belly ache, or a cool new charactor he thought up.

It wasn't Margo protesting the travisty of sleeping downstairs without her beloved Tony or letting us know that she didn't want to relieve herself in her crate.

It was the doorbell. Actually, it was about 352 chimes of the doorbell. Tony said at first it rang just a tentative ding-dong. Then a more urgent ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong. Then at the last a merry little tune of ding-di-di-ding-do-do-dong-di-do-ding-dong. There was even pounding on the door, the windows and I think a curse or two.

All the while I dreamt of sugar fairies dancing a-top a beautiful cake that was flanked by not one but TWO diet pepsi fountains. 

You would think that since he was so aware of the visitor he would have let them in himself!

But I guess that is hard to do when you are the one on the frigid side of the bolt.  When you are the good man who stays up until ten to take the the dog out one last time before retiring to bed you run the risk of locking yourself out.  You would think you could count on someone to miss you when you have not returned after 20 minutes.  He said he was certain he was going to have to sleep outside with nothing for warmth but his hat, coat, short-shorts and a very confused Margo.  I resisted suggesting that he could have asked the outside cat to share his blankie and instead considered myself very lucky that one-he was laughing this off and two-when he did return to bed he did not even try to wake me.