We travel a lot for our musical work and we usually get someone to stay in our home while we are away. We had two Bassett hounds for a lot of years and if we were away, we always needed someone to stay with them, feed them and make sure they didn’t put on our clothes and take over our empire while we were away. One of our favorite house/dog-sitters in those days was our friend Chris. He always took great care of our place and our dogs were always happy and well fed on his watch.
On one particular trip, we were going to end up coming home one day early. I texted Chris to let him know but he never got the message. It’s amazing how so much can hinge on one small text, one small detail. One little sentence getting through to Chris could have changed so much for all of us that night. Alas, it was not to be.
We arrived home around 2:30 am and when we pulled into the yard, we saw that Chris’s car was still there. “Huh…” we thought. Maybe he was just waiting up to welcome us home? It was clear when we walked in the door that Chris was not, in fact, waiting up to greet us, but that he did not even know we were coming home that day. Some of our living room furniture and electronics were rearranged, bachelor style and his stuff was strewn throughout the house. He always left our place spic and span when he house-sat for us and we knew he would be so upset for us to have walked in before he had it ready.
Barry deduced that Chris was actually already asleep in our bed and that we had a full-grown, male Goldilocks situation on our hands. We decided to just bunk in with the kids for the night and let him sleep. Barry got settled on the couch. Russell, Ivy and Sam headed to one bedroom and I got in a bed with five-year old Elliott in another bedroom.
We lived at 8872 feet elevation and oxygen is no laughing matter when you are living that high up. Often when returning from a tour, we would drive in from lowland locations like Texas or Louisiana and our bodies wouldn’t feel quite right for the first 24 hours. Sometimes our tummies would feel sick and our lungs always had to work pretty hard to keep up for a few days. The sheer altitude our house was seated at played a huge role in the events to follow.
Elliott and I fell asleep pretty fast but that sneaky old altitude started messing with him and he woke up with an upset tummy. Not realizing that I was laying right beside him, he slipped out of the bed and by reflex, went to Mommy and Daddy’s bedroom to find some help.
Chris’s account of what happened next was quite alarming. He says he was fast asleep and all of a sudden, when he was sure he was alone in the house, a small being was standing beside the bed, moaning and crying. He was totally disoriented by the unexpected presence of any other being, let alone one that was moaning and crying. Was it a demon?! Was it an alien?! Was it a raccoon?! He says he doesn’t know what kept him from taking a swing at the small person and when that small person figured out that Mommy and Daddy were not in their bed, but giant Goldilocks was, he ran screaming from the room. Goldilocks bolted from our room to figure out what the heck was happening and where the small moaning being went. He was muttering “What the hell…?” over and over.
Barry heard the screaming and the WTH and jumped up from the couch. He had been driving for 14 hours that day and was not coherent enough to remember to grab some pants in case he ran into our house guest. Barry, WTH Goldilocks and screaming Elliott all converged in the hallway, every last one of them in their underwear. Chris was beyond freaked out. He didn’t even know Barry was in the house, let alone stripped down to his skivvies. Barry grabbed up Elliott and tried to explain to a deer-in-the-headlights Chris that we had tried to let him know we were coming home one day early. Barry told him that we were all settled in, that we were so sorry that we woke him and for him to go back to bed. He stumbled back into our room.
Barry consoled Elliott and then brought him back to sleep with me. I was holding him and comforting him and trying to get us both back to sleep. And then, Elliott puked the most puke that has ever come out of a five-year old in the history of puke. I had been holding him on my chest and he had pointed his pie hole right down the front of my shirt. My shirt was filled with puke and there was puke all the way down to my panties. I have never been so utterly and completely puked on in my whole life. I started hollering for Barry and he came running once again. I handed him the empty-of-all-fluids five-year old and went to hose myself off. At this point, Chris came back out of the bedroom, fully clothed. He was mortified that he was not prepared for our arrival and said he had better just move along. We tried to tell him it was no problem but he would have none of it.
I would love to tell you that this was the end of the story, but it was very much not. Now Chris felt horrible that we came home to find him still there, bachin’ it up. He felt so bad about it that when he left our place, in the middle of the night, he drove straight to Wal-mart to buy donuts, eggs and orange juice for us so that we would have something to eat when we woke up. He didn’t want to wake us, so he left it on the front porch, just beside the door.
When the dogs woke up bright and early and whined to be let outside, I stumbled to the front door and let them out, without even noticing the smorgasborg Chris had left us. The dogs, however, noticed. Unbeknownst to me, they proceeded to devour the whole buffet. They drug the box of a dozen donuts and the eggs out into the yard and had a dog breakfast party. They gave up on the orange juice, due to no opposable thumbs.
They came back to the door and barked when they were ready to come back in and I let them back in. I stooped down to rub their backs and then Otis, the big one, puked a giant dog puke right onto the carpet. Are you freakin’ kidding me? More puke?! As I surveyed the giant mess on the floor I realized that what I was seeing was chunks of donuts floating in a slimy egg-like substance. Where in the world would Otis get a donut? What the? I threw open the front door and peered out into the yard. There was an abandoned donut box and a box of a dozen eggs, smashed and licked, right there on the front lawn. Knocked over by the front door was the orange juice, the sole survivor of the dog breakfast party.
I cleaned up puke for the second time in 6 hours and poured myself a glass of orange juice. I texted Chris to tell him how terribly sorry we were and to thank him for his kind breakfast intentions. I thanked him, on behalf of the dogs, for the buffet and that whole thing just made him feel even worse.
Believe it or not, Chris did house-sit for us again. The next time he did, I made sure to alert him of our arrival, three days before, then two days before, then one day before, then four hours before, then ten minutes before. He appreciated the clear warning and there was never any sign of him by the time we walked in.
Rock stars on tour probably end their tours with a giant party. There’s probably guys running around in their underwear, lots of food and plenty of puking. We parent musicians want in on that action too. Our tour end party had guys in their underwear, donuts, screaming AND puking. Not that different. Sorry, Chris.
Hilarious, Michelle!! Absolutely laugh-out-loud hilarious! You create amazing word pictures!!
Happy Thanksgiving to the whole group of you!