And They Were Off . .

I don’t spend a lot of time under the couch. As a kid I found out there’s not much to do there and it’s kind of boring. I’ve carried the attitude and experience with me in to adulthood and have found it’s much better to be on top of it. It’s more comfortable and I can bring things to read or watch TV more easily. There’s a loveseat in the living room, too, and the same goes for that.

I’m talking about couches and loveseats because they’re easier for me to move than Pat and one of my jobs has been to pull them out once in a while and clean underneath them. I’m not very good at that job. It’s not hard but I don’t remember to do it very often. The dust ruffle hides a lot and it usually takes a little prodding from Pat for me to get to it. Sometimes she forgets to prod for a while.

This actually started over a fan. We use air conditioning but, unless it’s really hot, we prefer fans for cooling. It was on the warm side last week and since some of our fans died at the end of last summer I went out and bought a new one. The box claimed it was a ‘Tornado Power Turbo Fan.’ I thought that meant they put an extra blade on it or maybe added a few RPMs but when I plugged it in and flipped the switch to high I realized the box was trying to tell me something. The fan blew enough air to give lift to small aircraft.

We don’t have aircraft in the living room but we do have dust ruffles and they started to flutter in the breeze. That’s when the dust bunnies escaped. A few came out from under the couch and loveseat as singles, there were quite a few doubles and threesomes and one grouping that looked like a dance line. They scurried and ran and did a Rumba across the floor. A few tried to take flight but didn’t make it. They finally bunched up in a corner, twirled a bit like a nervous bunch of cows then broke loose helter-skelter across the floor. All I could think to do was to yell, “Stampede!” And that woke up our dogs.

We have two Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers, George and Murray – half brothers from two successive litters. The Wheaten Terrier breed started out as the Irish peasant all-around farm dog with specialties in vermin hunting and herding. We haven’t had any vermin for them to hunt since they got here and their herding skills are less developed but they tried. They chased and snapped and found it’s really hard to kill a dust bunny. They barked a lot but the bunnies didn’t intimidate well, either. Herding was the last option but the bunnies wouldn’t settle down until I turned the fan off and then they wouldn’t move as directed.

George and Murray snapped and barked and pushed at the dust bunnies for a while until they felt their job was done and they trotted off with a smug look. I got a broom and dust pan and started cleaning up the dust bunnies they left in their wake.

Pat came in from her garden as I was finishing and asked what all the commotion was about. I told her I’d just gotten around to cleaning under the couches and the dogs had tried to help. She gave me one of those Uh-huh looks and asked, “How’s the new fan work?”

“Really well,” I told her. “Really, really well.” I thought that was all she probably needed to know.