The Ruby Rose Report: The Crate Door

 

My parents had a cookout to go to on the Fourth of July, one that I was neither invited to nor barred from. My participation was fully at the whims of my parents.

Let me be clear. I did not want to go. There would be my least favorite things there: People, and even worse, small children. Wet little tykes. Dripping from the cement pond. Who would want to hug me, pressing their wet suits against me, and I have no choice but to soak in their wet like a reluctant sponge?

Also, I would not be the only dog there.

Mommy’s nephew brings his dog Aiden. He loves his family the pool, the kids, and the heat. It loves everything.

If you ask me it’s a little with the loving.

He lets wet kids hug him, as well as dry old people, and damp middle-aged people.

I have not met him, but I have smelled him on my people, which is rude.

So, what I’m saying is I didn’t want to go.

I didn’t want my parents to go either.

This is when having a mischievous angel sibling is fun,

I am more comfortable in my crate on the rare occasions I am left alone so I was not responsible for what happened next.

My parents said goodbye and were ready to go out when the door on my crate fell off.

You all know crates. They are tiny plastic fortresses. Doors don’t just pop off, at least not without some pressure from the inside.

My parents put the door on, and locked it, then went to leave again when the door fell off, and I heard River snickering.

They went to put the door on again when they noticed the clip-on top of the non-locking side was missing. Then looked for it and could not find it.

It made no sense. But they weren’t counting on the interference of River, a devilish little angel.

There was no way the door was going on, that was clear, but my parents are intellectuals which meant they spent 15 minutes trying to outsmart the door and get it to stay. They failed, and they were now twenty minutes late. The people, already at the cookout, began to hope that “those dreadful people,” would not be attending.

My Dad, who thinks everything can be fixed with duct tape, picked up a roll, My Mom dismissed it with a curt “no.”

They remembered when they first got me they had bought a soft-sided travel bag and got that, but it was seven pounds, and a few inches ago, and they could not leave me in such cramped circumstances.

They realized they could put the crate facing the wall, which would hold the door in place, but they didn’t want me to not be able to see what I usually could when created, the floor and the bottom of the couch. How would I survive without such reverting entertainment?

Finally, they settled on using an unplugged space heater which would block the unhinged part of the door.

Of course, they could have left the door off. I had no desire to be out of the crate.

Once they were gone River appeared to me and explained that her interference was not to keep me out of the crate, but to delay my parents’ arrival by a half hour, cutting the time of attendance on this hot Fourth of July by a half hour,

Angels help our humans even when they don’t realize it.

The River came into my crate, and we played canasta until my parents got home.

And they ordered a new crate.

This is what they could have done, but they have some ideas on how to fix it without paying for a new one.

I may never be left alone again.

 

 

 

,