Some Days It Pays To Stay In Bed. Or Does It?

My friends Elaine and Gray kindly agreed to host me at their place for two weeks while my villa mate Tricia welcomes family and friends at “ours” (it’s her villa really, I just have a room there, but that’s another story).

Elaine, Gray, and Elaine’s son Phil are in Oman for the Eid holiday, so I’m in charge of their two dogs Poppy and Gypsy. They’re good dogs. Most of the time.

Today, as usual, I took them for their morning walk, then fed and watered them before I went on my own five kilometer “wog” (that’s a cross between a walk and a jog). All according to plan. Until my return.

I left Gypsy outside, and Poppy inside, while I was out for the wog. (Perhaps separating them was unwise, who knows? Dogs, like people, often have little idiosyncrasies…)

Anyway, upon my hot and sweaty return, I bounced into my room to find my bed looking like I had just stepped out of it: duvet in disarray, pillows scattered hither and yon.

“Hmmmmm,” I said to myself (there being no one else around to say it to), “That’s funny, I’m sure I made my bed before I left.”

Yes, I had most certainly made it, for there, sitting neatly folded on the one pillow still undisturbed was the (you guessed it!), PINK T-shirt I wear on arising.  I always fold it and put it on the pillow AFTER I make the bed. So, I made the bed before I left on the wog - why is it all messed up now?

Hold on a minute. What’s that? That big, dark splotch smack dab in the middle of the bed?

I touch it. It’s wet.

It’s wet??? WTF!? Oh. My. God.

Poppy! Poppy, you ingrate! How could you? After I just watered and walked and fed you? How could you PEE IN MY BED!!!!!??????

The ultimate insult. What could be worse? I know. Me having to use my virtually non-existent domestic skills in an unknown environment. Sigh.

You know what it’s like when you’re staying at someone else’s home. It’s all a bit unfamiliar. You don’t know where stuff is, or even where to start looking for it when you need it. And you don’t know how to operate the appliances. Because, you know, it’s not YOUR place.

If it were YOUR place, you would know that thing in the bathroom is the DRYER, NOT the washing machine.

And of course you wouldn’t stuff dog-pee sheets and a whole whack of washing powder in the dryer… Double sigh. If it were your place, you would know that. Surely you would.

But it’s not, and you don’t. So it’s only when you push the ‘on’ button, and the machine starts to make air-blowing-and-fluffing sounds instead of filling-up-with-water sounds that you realize your error. Sadly, it’s too late…

Then it occurs to you that if there’s a dryer, there must be a washing machine somewhere. But where? Ah yes, in the kitchen, behind that blue-checked curtain. So you remove the dog-pee sheets from the dryer, leaving behind copious amounts of washing powder (you put in extra, just to make sure you got the sheets super clean), and head for the washing machine.

Drat. The washing machine is filled with wet clothes that somebody washed and forgot to dry. They need to go in the dryer. Too bad it’s full of washing powder….

Let’s see. What to do? I know! Use the vacuum cleaner to shhhhllluuuuurrrpppp the washing powder out of the dryer. Brilliant. Now let me think, where might the vacuum cleaner be...? Oh good, found it. But why don’t they put power outlets in bathrooms? They should know that someone might someday want to vacuum washing powder out of dryers that might be located therein….

The nearest outlet is in the kitchen. It takes three extension cords, poached from various places around the house, to get the vacuum cleaner close enough to the dryer to suck out the washing powder. But it works. Yep, it works a treat :)

Meanwhile my phone battery dies, and the in-house charger pin goes kaput, so I now have to drive around the block a few times to recharge the phone.

“Is there anything at all about which to feel joyful this morning?” you may well ask.

Absolutely: my hair has begun to grow out of the day-before-yesterday’s salon FAIL, and I shouldn’t need another cut until sometime in mid-2011. (Yep. It’s THAT short.)

What might be learned from this morning's misadventures? Well, had I stayed in bed, Poppy might not have peed in it.

Then again, I wouldn’t have had fun writing this story, laughing at life, and at myself. Nor would I have had the pleasure of knowing you laughed along with me.

All in all? Definitely worth getting out of bed for...