Lord of the Castle

The conversation inside the truck went something like this: “Sunshine, I was at this place 45 minutes ago.”

I’m sure Dodgeball was thinking, “that sounds familiar.”

“Dad, you should have called me.”

Dodgeball groaned. Steve Martin’s scene replayed inside of me for a SECOND time as I found my cell phone and handed it to her with the “Call History” displayed.

“But Dad, I checked her phone for missed calls!”

“Sunshine, I called three times. Why didn’t you just tell me what the house looked like?”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“You said that they were right next to the church.”

“They are. It’s just two streets over…”

“And then you have to head off into the Australian Outback! (I didn’t say exactly that but something to that effect) When you were deciding earlier in the day what you were going to do this afternoon, didn’t I say that I didn’t want to have to find you?”

“Yes.”

“Does this qualify?”

At this point, I couldn’t ‘relax’ any longer. I called my daughter again…no response.

Dodgeball decided to call a friend. Perhaps he saw an opportunity. I mean after all, he wasn’t looking quite as bad now! Misery loves company and here his sister had ridden in to save his day! He emerged from the truck to inform me that we were supposed to take the two left forks.

“We already did that.”

He went back into hiding and called his friend back. “Dad, the place with the John Deere tractor in the driveway is the right place.”

Back to the house with no front door. The barking, growling dog is now roaming the driveway but the garage door is open. I decided to risk it. As I went to the gate, a little girl came out of the side of the house with a littler black dog in her hands. She acknowledged that my daughter was indeed inside and that she would get her but “could I please not let the dog out?!”

I made SURE the gate was closed and headed back toward the truck. I had my head down, trying to figure out how I was going to respond when I finally met my daughter when the little black dog suddenly burst into my field of vision at my feet!

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT HERE?”

I looked back and sure enough, I HAD closed the gate! “GET BACK IN THERE!”

I scared the little black dog back under the gate back into the yard just as my daughter and her friend appeared. I plastered my best “Hi honey. I am so glad to see you” smile on my face and greeted her friend.

As I was informing them that their dog can get under the fence, the darn thing JUMPED THROUGH THE FENCE! “See, he just did it again! He went through the fence!” I mean, the dog was so small that he fit between the upright ‘pickets’ of the picket fence!