George the dog almost looked like he was smirking at me. Photo / 123rf
The other night I awoke to a howling noise.
My first thought was the teenagers up the street were playing silly buggers, but upon investigation – which basically means I peered through a gap in the closed curtains - I could find no evidence of a party or a sloshed teen coming home from a night on the town.
What I did find, however, was George the Dog at the front door shouting to be let in.
What had obviously happened was we'd had the front door open during the evening because it was so hot. George had gone outside for a snooze on the cool deck and I'd inadvertently locked him out when I shut up shop later on.
The look he gave me as he trotted through the door once the error was discovered was one of pure, well, disgust. It was, after all, not the first time I'd done this.
Last time the howling had gone on for hours, all through the night, before I finally got up to find the number for Noise Control, only to discover the racket was coming from my very own pooch.
Anyway, George trotted off to bed, presumably wondering what he'd done to deserve such a plonker for a dad and the house settled back into its slumbers.
Next morning Mrs P had headed out to an appointment and George and I were alone in the house when a courier turned up.
We get a lot of medicinal packages delivered so over time we've built up a happy relationship with the couriers, even though I'm sure we can't quite understand each other's accents.
A smile and a "thank you" on both sides is entirely appropriate.
George, on the other hand, does the dog thing and just goes ballistic whenever anybody he doesn't know approaches the house.
Thus, the other morning, as he leapt about going crazy I shot out the door to meet the courier halfway along the garden path to save him being licked to death.
Exactly how it happened I'm not sure but I'm thinking somehow in the calamitous whirlwind that is my dog jumping up and pawing at the ranch slider trying to get out he managed to flip the mechanism and lock me out.
I only discovered this when I came back to the door with the parcel and found my entry completely shut off and a bemused George looking back at me from the other side. He may have even been smirking, I can't be sure.
So now I had a problem.
Stuck outside with no way of getting back in and all the neighbours off at work. Busting for a wee, if truth be told, and Mrs P and the house keys not expected back for several hours. I'd need to try to call her and get her to come home to let me in.
The sound of the courier van returning from the other end of the cul-de-sac jolted me into action.
Dropping the parcel. I raced back down the path and out into the street frantically waving my arms to stop him.
After a couple of minutes' explanation I got the message across. The poor chap was in a bit of a hurry and wasn't keen on being delayed by handing over his work phone to an idiot - which I totally understood.
But he agreed to call Mrs P on my behalf once he'd gotten his next delivery out the way. So I quickly wrote down her cell number and bade him farewell
Three hours later I'm still sitting on the deck looking in through the window at George staring out at me. The lemon tree in the corner of the garden has had a watering, if you get my drift, and Mrs P comes walking up the garden path without a care in the world.
It turns out she got a call on her cellphone hours ago from some bloke.
She couldn't quite understand what he was on about but she was sure it was one of those random telephone scams you hear, about so she'd just hung up.