Tag: labrador retriever

Negotiating with Cookies – Eggs Benedict

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

I finish pushing the reel mower around the backyard lawn and go inside for a glass of water to wash down the pollen where I find Fleegle in the kitchen sitting in front of the refrigerator with the door wide open and a strange blue glow on his face.

“What the cat, Fleegle? Close the fridge door. You’re letting all the cold air out.”

He doesn’t budge. “But then I won’t be able to see it.”

“See what? The egg?”

“No, the ham.” He wags his tail. “Are you ready for your sandwich yet?’

“It’s only 10:30 and I had a big bowl of oatmeal for breakfast.”

“I know, it was tasty.”

I step over to close the fridge door, but stop. “Does it look bigger to you?”

“The ham?”

“No, the egg.”

“Maybe, but the ham definitely looks smaller. If you were smart you’d go buy a new light bulb for the fridge and give that crazy egg thingy to Timber Jack. I bet his jaws can crush anything.”

“You’re probably right, but we need to see this through. Don’t you want to know what it is?”

“Not as much as I want to avoid another encounter with crazy space chickens.”

“Oh Fleegle, you worry too much.

  *   *   *

In the middle of the night I’m woken by a cold wet nose in my face. “Raud, wake up. It’s happening.”

“What’s happening?”

“Your reckoning. Listen.”

I hear the muffled sounds of something thrashing about coming from the direction of the kitchen.

Fleegle jumps off the bed. “You better bring that bat you keep by the bed.”

I glance at it as I slip my feet into my slippers, then grab it and follow the noise to the kitchen.

Fleegle cocks his ears. “It’s coming from inside the fridge.”

As I open the fridge door, the sound stops, and all looks normal inside, bathed in a pink glow of a Key West sunset.

“It’s gone,” Fleegle says.

“No, it’s not,” I say and point at the egg.

“Not the egg, the ham.” His hackles go up and he growls. “And the egg looks definitely bigger.”

I flick on the kitchen light. “And so does your belly.”

 

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Negotiating with Cookies – The Egg

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

While I’m brewing a cup of tea in the kitchen, Fleegle comes in from the patio with something muddy in his mouth.

“Why don’t you leave that gooky ball outside?”

He mouths around it, “It’s not a ball, Raud, it’s something else.”

“What then?”

He sets it on the floor. “I don’t know. I found it in the earth.”

It’s smaller than one of his tennis balls and shaped like an egg. I pick it up and rinse it off in the sink. “It’s blue, the sky blue of July.” I weigh it in my hand. “It’s too heavy to be an egg.”

“If it were an egg I would’ve eaten it.”

“Don’t let George hear you say that.”

“He’s mad at me.”

“Did you eat all his Chickie Puffs again?”

“You try eating just one.”

“That’s a dangerous advertizing meme you’re repeating started by the potato chip companies.” I look down at the egg thingy in my hand, which is now pink, the rose pink of sunset.

Fleegle tilts his head to the side. “I thought you said it was blue.”

I look at him. “It was blue, now it’s pink.”

“No, now it’s yellow.”

“The yellow of a ripe lemon.”

“Yuck, I hate lemons. Give it to me and I’ll go put it back in the ground.”

“But you like lemon scones.”

“Scones are biscuits.”

“Why don’t you show me where you found it.”

I follow Fleegle into the backyard toward the fence at the property line and into the bamboo to a hole he’s dug.

“I found it in that hole,” he says.

“What made you dig there?”

“It smelled funny, like that egg thingy smells funny. Let’s bury it and leave it alone.”

“But what if it’s an egg left by those crazy space chickens?”

“The ones Timber Jack and his date ate? The Master Race of chickendom?”

“Yeah, those chickens.”

“Then drop it in a food bowl and put it out with the garbage cans on garbage day. Let Timber Jack finish what he started. We can watch from the picture window, nice and safe on the living room couch.”

In the dark of the bamboo the egg thingy gives off a lot of light. “I’ve got a better idea. The fridge bulb burnt out this morning, let’s use this instead.”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“You’ve been watching too much Star Wars.”

 

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