Always grateful for a noisy Thanksgiving
- Laura Moore: Housebroken
- December 5, 2022
- 194
Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday that brings families together to enjoy visiting and eating. It’s usually a favorite holiday for our house, but this year she was overwhelmed.
A number of our family members are both big and tall and very quickly filled up our not-so-big house. That large crowd in our place evidently intimidated our dogs, sending them into a panic. They started running around wildly, barking at the top of their lungs. Taller Half did his best to calm our noisy pets but to no avail.
Our pups then entered the hysterical barking stage and couldn’t stop. They then added an occasional howl to their repertoire. Initially, all that canine noise was funny, but then it wasn’t. Taller Half was asked to confine our pups to a back room and shut the door.
The ensuing quiet was a relief to everyone’s ears, and we could begin to enjoy our family time again. That is, until a little mouse ran out from under the couch. That ended the visit at our house. Everybody got up and headed out to another relatives’ home, a place without noisy dogs or a mouse. Taller Half and I led the way.
The rest of our holiday was filled with conversation, good food, a well-behaved pet and no mouse. By the end of the day, everyone was ready to head home, except us. Our house awaited us with noisy dogs and a mouse. We finally got up enough gumption to go home and deal with our problems. Surprisingly, upon our arrival, we found our house calm and quiet. Our pups were curled up sleeping, and the mouse had disappeared.
We tiptoed about, clearing up the mess we had left, and when finished, we sat down with a calming drink and discussed the day’s excitements. Next year we decided the dogs would be boarded over the holiday, any mice still inhabiting our house would be trapped and released in the woods, and the holiday meal will be celebrated at someone else’s house. I swear we could hear our grateful place sigh in gratitude.