Here in the GoodinParts household we have 2 dogs...Dillon the Evil Jack Russell, and Mufti the Good-as-Gold, Butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth Australian terrier.
This is a truth both self-evident and as immutable as the courses of the planets.
Until today, that is.
I went out in a hurry after lunch, accidentally shutting Good Girl Mufti in my study (where she spends hours most days, peacefully sleeping on the sofa).
I returned 90 minutes later, and opened the study door to find the place absolutely and completely t.r.a.s.h.e.d.
Chairs upturned.
Bin emptied.
Papers everywhere (oh no, hang on, - that's where they were before)
Bags of tea lights torn open, and their contents scattered far and wide.
Basket ransacked and feminine necessities ditto (thank the Lord I came home alone,without any poor innocent parishioner in need of comfort or reassurance....)
Books eaten.
Yes, you did read that correctly. Mufti devours poetry. More especially the poetry of Elizabeth Jennings and of Gerard Manley Hopkins.
History has been rewritten. Maybe, all those times when Dillon was caught red pawed in the act of committing a heinous crime, his svengali, Malicious Mufti, had vanished from the scene only seconds before.
You could say (and you'd probably be right) that it serves me right f0r allowing the books I'm in the throes of reading to pile up on my desk (she'd caused an avalanche from desk to floor as part of her depradations) but why, oh why did she have to pick on Elizabeth Jennings. I'm pretty sure that she's out of print, and I'd just promised LongsufferingClockmaker to have a book buying fast for a while...but I do love her work so.
So from Privet Drive comes the sound of wailing and gnashing of teeth.
From the curate, that is.
The dog, of course, is completely unrepentent.
Oh no! Not sure which would be worse - the chaos and destruction or the destruction of precious books. Hope both can be sorted without too much difficulty.
ReplyDeleteOh sadness. I do hope your dog doesn't have a taste for second-rate twenty-first century American poets! ;)
ReplyDelete