Every week, there is a mad scramble, a veritable race between dog and woman, to see who gets to greet the Lord and Master first as he arrives home for the weekend. This is about one such weekend….

The Wife, as is usual, is sitting in front of the computer, brows knit, a thoughtful look on face, chewing lower lip while putting the final touches to her blog. She wants to post it before The Husband arrives and be done with it. The Husband is expected any moment.

Tang!

That’s the sound of the gate! The Wife jumps up and transforms her expression from the thoughtful, knit-browed one to that of welcoming-husband-home look.

The Wife then opens the door. There is her Lord and Master standing at the gate. She rushes over, wide grin in place, the sunlight glinting off her silver capped pre-molars. True, it is that she is in her late forties. Yet she knows not how to walk at a sedate pace.

Errr….would you mind folks? Try not to look or overhear. The Husband is greeting The Wife. Good manners and all you see.

Ok….You can open your ears and eyes now!

Suddenly something strikes (not physically) the Wife and she exclaims,

“Where is The Dog?!”

The Dog is not around.

The Wife is ecstatic!

It is not everyday that The Wife gets to be the first to greet The Husband. The Dog is always on the scene much before her, prancing, yelping and fawning, while The Wife has to wait patiently for her turn. Don’t be silly, she doesn’t prance, yelp or fawn (err…maybe fawn). She has to await her turn for that greeting from the better half, the hug with a few darlings and other sweet nothings thrown in.

The Wife feels it is all unfair. The Dog can sit all day out in the sun at the gate awaiting The Master. The Wife cannot. Apart from her household duties The Wife has her dewy complexion to think of. She cannot have The Husband come home and find that she, The Wife of the Flawless Complexion Fame now resembles a Tomato that has had Close Encounters of the Fire Kind with disastrous results.

Yet, today unbelievably, she is the one first on the scene!

The Wife bunches her fingers and brings her arm down and goes “Yes! Yes! Yesssss!”

The Husband raises his eyebrows to indicate there are neighbors around. The Wife’s voice does tend to raise an octave or two when excited. But is The Wife bothered? Never has been, with such things mundane. When The Wife is happy she is happy and the neighbors are welcome to know of it. She is not coy about hiding her joy.

Still no Dog on the scene!

The Wife does a few steps of what can be loosely termed dance steps though it looks more like she has got the shivers of the ague.

The Husband rolls his eyes.

Lost on the Wife of course.

She does a few more jiggles, steps from the latest trend in dance forms.

“Let’s go inside” says The Husband optimistically trying to steer The Wife in.

Right then, out through the front door, like a bullet from a gun, rushes out The Missing Dog. She makes straight for her Master, covering up her tardiness with yelps and welcoming barks. The Dog, not being as young as she used to be, had been asleep somewhere inside and had failed to notice that her Master had arrived. The Dog tries to hide her remorse by being extra earnest in trying to climb up The Master’s leg to lick his face. A difficult proposition to say the least, considering that the said face is somewhere six feet above ground level. Unable to make it to The Master’s face The Dog confines itself to prancing around at ground level, yelping and fawning some more.

The Wife does not let the occasion pass without a reminder to The Dog.

“I am first! I am first!!!!! Yaaaay!!!!!!!” says she and does a few more of those dance steps.

“Shhhh…” says The Husband, glancing to his left and right.

The Dog prances, yelps and fawns over The Master even more, pretending not to hear the ‘I-am-firsts’.

“Shari! Shari!” (Okay!Okay!) says The Master.

“You are late! I was here first!” taunts The Wife in a sing song voice, jiggling.

The Dog does her impersonation of a deaf dog (most likely taking a leaf out of the proverbial deaf adder’s book) to perfection. It runs to the gate and looks to see if any Innocent Passer By is walking outside so as to vent steam on him/her.

No luck. The road is empty of Innocent Passers By.

Still, The Dog puts in a few barks for good measure and rushes back to her jump, try-to-lick-The-Master’s-face routine.

“I am first!” sings The Wife, jiggling away.

The Husband has now given up on The Wife. Technically he has given up on her long back, he being of the opinion that The Wife has a few circuits missing. But the optimist that The Husband is, he still hopes that The Wife will grow up some day. Hope, you see, burns eternal in people’s hearts.

The Dog runs to the wall separating the house with the next door neighbor’s and barks trying to provoke The Labrador on the other side. The neighbor’s dog takes the bait. The Dog now vents her fury on The Labrador next door. She runs from this end to that end barking madly as if everything that happened had been The Labrador’s fault all along. The Husband and The Wife watch in amusement for some time and then before all the “I am first!” routine can start, The Husband skillfully leads The Wife inside.

Coffee time. The Husband is at the dining table sipping straight-from-the-stove hot, coffee when The Dog rushes back inside. Enough of spewing venom at The Labrador for her. She sits next to The Master looking at him adoringly. The Dog lifts one paw.

“Can I have some Coffee?” is the unasked question on her face.

“No!” frowns The Wife.

“Awww….!” says The Husband.

He pours some coffee for The Dog. She laps it up, (but after waiting for it to cool some, coz can anyone drink coffee as hot as The Husband?) and goes back to ‘you-are-my-hero’ look.

The Husband has had a long day, his work having started in the wee hours of the morning. He needs some sleep, some rest. He lays down for his well deserved rest. The Dog, follows him to the bedroom, sighs and settles herself underneath his cot. The Wife gently closes the door behind her and…

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…what do you think?!

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Do you even have to ask?!

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She is writing this blog post!

Doesn’t The Wife have to document the events of this All Important Day when she could beat The Dog and be The One To Greet The Husband First?