Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

By The Erudite Redneck

Idn't this a cute critter? Take a good look at her. Her name is Belle. She is my dog-in-law. She lives in Texas and belongs to Dr. ER's folks. How sweet.

Unlike OUR dogs, which are maniacs.

About half way to Texas, I turned to Dr. ER and said, "Did I move the milk can in front of the back door?"

Let's stop right there, for this requires a little splainin' right off the bat.

The door from the dining-living area of the ER House to the "sun room" -- quote marks to distinguish this part of our home from an actual sun room -- will not latch, not without a lot of heaving and hoisting and slamming.

So, rather than heave, hoist and slam it at every instance of ingress or egress, we usually just slide a milk can that sits BY the door over in FRONT OF the door, to keep Riker, the regal and sophisticated Pembroke Welsh Corgi, and Bailey, the po' white trash weinie dog who should reside in a short yellow doghouse, from jumping up on said door and coming into the house, where Ice-T now reigns supreme. (The dogs have complete access to the sun room because, bein' suburban livestock, they are sissies and spoiled. When I was growin' up. my dogs had to walk 12 miles uphill to their feed dish, both ways).

The door stop would be one of your basic heavy-gauge milk cans like dairy farmers used to use before they got so high-tech. We have two in our front room, one from the ER home place, where Daddy ER once operated a dairy, and one from somewhere else, from the Dr. ER side of the family. They go nicely with the NASCAR tire, which also is in repose in the living-dining area of the ER household.

But I digress.

Said Dr. ER, at that moment half way to Texas, "Well, if you can't remember if you did, then you probably didn't." And for about 2.75 seconds, I worried about it and what havoc two dogs and cat could wreak in the house over a weekend unsupervised..

In Texas, hugs, handshakes and gifts were exchanged. It took me a long, long time, but I finally got half way warmed back up to having Bird in my presence. Dr. ER and I went to walk through the local community Christmas light display on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day, more hugs were exchanged and food consumed.

We took off back for Oklahoma by mid-afternoon. Bird took off in her own car and got 20 minutes or so ahead of us. She was instructed to call Dr. ER on her cell phone if there was any evidence that domestic livestock had, in fact, been in the house.

About 45 minutes from the house, just as I was expounding on some fine point surrounding the secular politics behind the Council of Nicea and what potential ramifications it has today for people of faith, Dr. ER's cell phone rang.

And time, as we know it, stood still.

"There is definitely evidence that dogs have been in the house," Bird reported. Dr. ER hollered into the phone unintelligibly, except for one phrase that was crystal clear: "ER, you are in so much trouble."

Bird swept through the house, reporting that "leaves are everywhere." Riker emerged from my office, yawning, she reported. Ice-T is alive, is all we can get out of her.

"I can't find Bailey," Bird said, noting that the door to the "sun room," the milk can sitting useless to its side, is wide open.

"Oh! I saw some something! Bird said. "Bailey is running around in the back yard with -- does he have a red-and-white blanky?" ("Yes," she is informed) "... with a red-and-white blanky hooked onto his collar!"

Holy shit, where's the Tylenol! It was pandelerium in the ER household.

We got home to find not just leaves, but cedar chips on every square inch of the floor of the dining-living area, kitchen, hallway and laundry room, and some in my office, and some in Bird's old room (thank goodness we had shut the doors to our bedroom-bathroom tight; Bailey absconded with a stuffed Halloween toy from where we do not know, to his house in the "sun room"; a cat on the verge -- nay, the very precipice -- of a complete nervous breakdown; all the cat food, dog food and water that Riker and Bailey could get to, consumed; a dog-shaped hole in one of the screen windows of the "sun room," where the made their exits and their extrances after the wind had slammed the outside door shut; early-opened Christmas presents on the floor by my recliner akimbo but othersise unharmed; stockings on the hearth nosed around in; and the ER household's own Christmas presents, still under the tree, but nosed around in if not urinated on -- but it didn't look or smell like any unauthorized tinkling had ensued around our tree.

So I spent Christmas night cleanin' the house!

Gah.

Today, we finally went to see "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." Good. But there's too much story in that story to get into one movie. Then we ate at "Nothing But Noodles" -- which reminds me of the Puppy Store and the Scotch Tape Store in an old Saturday Night Live -- then wandered around the Bass Pro Shop for awhile.

Bird and Dr. ER just went to Kohl's to look for after-Christmas bargains. Myself, I am takin' a break right now from nosin' around the kitchen lookin' for a post-noodle lagniappe.

--ER

P.S. Guess who?