A Good Outcome

The Time: Lunchtime.

The Situation: He buys, I fly. I take the dog with me because..well, why not? Drive-thru, here we come.

The Mix-Up: Upon arrival home, I let the dog out of the car and grab the grub. DH is moving his 100 coffee cups from his car into the kitchen (thanks for the extra dishes honey). We meet in our no-fence backyard. He assumes the dog goes in with me. I assume the dog stayed out with him.

The Light Bulb Moment: 15 minutes later, as we eat the grease-filled food that my nutritionist would not approve of, DH realizes the dog is not begging at neither of our feet. Where is Lexi? Lexi? Lexi! L-E-X-I!!!!!

My dog is gone, my DH is in full paranoia mode as he runs around the house screaming at the top of his lungs. I am cool and calm. Crisis? I can handle crisis. The dog or cat looking out the window when I leave for work - that brings me to tears. But a real crisis...no problem.

DH runs into the house, sweating from running around the house, and yells LEEEEXXXXXXIIIIIII right into my ear. "WE NEED TO DRIVE AROUND AND LOOK FOR HER!!!!" I grab my keys, "I'm not taking you with me." Paranoia is not going to help me find my dog.

I flashback to Lexi's first rabies shot. She had an allergic reaction and her cute little nose looked as if she had a giant golf ball lodged in it. DH was in a full-blown panic then, too. I was the level-headed one driving,  Lexi was the level-headed passenger whose face was exploding, and DH - it took a while to get him to calm down. A while, as in: we have left the hospital and are going home now. She is okay. It was an allergic reaction. She is going to live, the doctor said so.

Then there was the time that our GPS (we call her Joanie) took us down a wrong street in Montgomery, Alabama at night. Lexi was in my lap, DH was driving. I just put down the book I was reading, "Be The Pack Leader" by Cesar Milan. The neighborhood was not the best (at least in the dark it looked questionable) and somehow Joanie  screwed up and told us to go the wrong way. As we turned down this dark, one way street, DH slams on his brakes, refusing to go into the "hood." Joanie is "dinging" and screaming, "You are an idiot! Turn around in 500 feet." Lexi is sitting on my lap like, "what is going on?" DH is in a panic, I'm cool as a cucumber...again. "Just go around the block." He refuses, backing up the car the wrong way on a one-way street and hits a light pole. He was so mad, and it took everything I had in me to try to stifle my laugh because it was soo flippin' funny! I'm laughing now just thinking about it!

I'm finding out that my husband has a hard time with crisis, especially when the dog is involved. Now if he gets a middle of the night phone call that there has been an attempted murder and the suspect is on the loose, DH is under control. He can call the shots, direct the police, call judges in the middle of the night for warrants - he can get the job done and tie a nice little bow on a sentence for the criminal. But let the dog cough funny and his blood pressure skyrockets. Relax, honey. She's coughing.

Back to reality. I walk outside, keys in hand, and whistle and yell her name, both first and last name so she knows she's in trouble. Like a bat out of hell, my little corgi comes running from the neighbors yard. DH sees her sprinting towards the mommy, "Here I come Mom! I came quick. Can I get a treat for being so fast?"

I guess that quick return deserves a french fry (her first ever). Good girl, Lexi. Now let us pray that daddy doesn't have a heart attack. It takes him 20 minutes to catch his breath. Seriously.

Sometimes, I wish we had a camera set up, recording us. What would those three little minutes look like on replay? Would it be as funny as I remember it, or would it be the horror film that DH remembers? I guess it all depends on the outcome. If I really did lose my dog, I would have felt responsible and I would be depressed forever. But I didn't lose her. She was in the neighbors yard, smelling everything for 18 minutes. Does that make us lucky that she didn't run away? Or does that make me skilled as a pack-leader that she didn't stray too far away from home and came running when I called her? Like I said, I guess, it's all in the outcome. Thank God it was a good outcome.