"The Dog"

We attended our first homeowners association meeting last night. We'd already met all our neighbors immediately surrounding our house, but we hadn't met many of the other people in our neighborhood, so the meeting was a good opportunity to meet some of the other people. (And I guess I'll get to see them more often because I'm in charge of the social committee now -I forgot the number one rule of meetings: just keep your mouth shut and you won't get burdened with any responsibilities.)

At these meetings, after you introduce yourself to someone else, the first questions is always, "Which house is yours?" Our house is the house that faces the entrance to the neighborhood, so everyone sees our house every day. So we really hope we're not known as "that house with all the dead grass" or "that house that never mows" or "that family with all the toys laying around" or "that family with the poor naked children."

We were relieved to discover that our identity rests with Chester. All the neighbors we met last night asked if we were the family with "the dog." Then they would go on about how sweet he is, and how beautiful, how nice. Chester likes to spend most of his time resting on the driveway in front of the house and apparently whenever a car drives into the neighborhood, he stands up and watches as it drives by. And everyone loves that he's watching over the neighborhood. Little do they know that he wouldn't do much to protect the neighborhood, aside from annoying any intruders with requests to throw his frisbee over and over and over again.