Fawlty Bungalow

As my faithful readers know, my neighbor Jay has a big brown dog, Oscar. Jay told me he was going away for 4 days at Christmas and asked me to take care of the dog. Arg.

Taking care of Oscar is a pain because he sleeps inside Jay's house (he can't sleep in my house because it isn't big enough for big old me and 2 big dogs) and needs to go out first thing in the morning.

This would mean a 4-day holiday weekend of getting up before 6 a.m. to let Oscar out. While I'm not a REAL late sleeper, I do like to snooze until 8 or so on weekends...is that asking too much?

So I told Jay no. But he went on and on and pleaded and begged, so I said yes.

Then a couple weeks later I told him I was going out of town for the weekend so I couldn't do it. Not technically a lie, because I am going to spend one night away, maybe.

The problem is that Jay changed his plans and isn't going away after all.

So now I am caught in my own deception, á la Basil Fawlty. I have to either 1) leave town for the weekend or 2) sneak into my own house and not turn on any lights for 4 days or 3) make up some lie about staying here.

Good work, Suebob. You'd think I'd learn that it is easier to tell the truth, but no.