April's Fools

So, for our first trick, the alarm failed to go off this morning. April Fools!! It is 15 minutes before I need to be at work. As I dash out of the bedroom, I trip over Cy who was lying in wait to pounce on the human, twist my ankle, and jamb my out stretched arm through the shoulder blade and far past the physical limits of the collar bone. I rush to the Princess Suite with Mickey, Cy and Karson in tow, 4 pathetic parade members who desperately need to potty.

At the entrance to the Princess Suite I am stopped dead in my tracks, and the other three members of the need to potty parade pile up into my hind end. I actually find a person in bed, April Fools!! Either the alarm in the Princess Suite also failed to go off this morning, or I’ve actually caught one of the trolls The Princess sends to fool us into thinking she still lives here. I call out to the person in the bed that it is now 7:48 and she had better get up. I am answered with a muffled unintelligible response and a single bleary eye that looks vaguely familiar. “Look” I say, “You may or may not be my daughter, but no matter who you are, I need to be at work in 12 minutes, you need to get up and use all the hot water.”


Great.. Late for work. My throbbing arm is still out stretched, and I notice something hideously wrong. The hand on the end is not wrapped around a hot cup of coffee! The parade members know that coffee is the first step in the next chain of events that eventually leads to FOOD, and get excited when I move towards the kitchen. Cy jumps up and down and Mickey attacks Karson the beagle. “Mickey! Get the Beagle Out Of Your Mouth!” I say as I head towards the most glorious machine ever invented.. the timed coffee maker. My throbbing out stretched arm which now does hold an empty coffee mug presses the cup against the dispenser and I wait for the hot, black, delicious, lifeblood to pour into the mug… Nothing… April Fools!!! The coffee maker has also failed to go off.. It is then with great horror that I realize that every device we own with a time display is flashing…There has been a power outage in the night.. Great.. NO COFFEE..


In desperation I shovel a tablespoon of dry coffee grounds into my mouth and open the back door to leash the hounds for the morning walk. As I am tugged down the stairs from the back deck by three bloated and urgent hounds, I notice my next door neighbor hopping out to his car on one shoe, his briefcase in hand while trying desperately to get the other shoe on, button his shirt and tie his tie, all the while coughing and hacking up dry coffee grounds.. “Moonfning Bobf” I manage to choke out through the dry coffee I am chewing as I wiggle a hello from the fingers on my still out stretched and throbbing arm. “April Fools!!” says Bob while gasping for air.. Yup.. April Fools..

We sure are..