I would like to say yesterday was a “rainbow” day.  That’s when the sun is out at the same time it is raining or, in the case of Central Oregon, snowing (even in May.)  I would like to say that but yesterday was more like former Vice President Dick Cheney’s head: pointless.

Yes, it was a completely Dick-head day because the only time things were normal was when my dog Scully, the blind, diabetic, elderly poodle mix came in for the night, drank her water too fast and coughed hard enough to audibly poot.  It happens every night and yet never fails to make us all laugh until we cry. 

The day started with the seasonal panic over conflicting schedules between AP (Advanced Placement) tests and the regular school day.  My son, a senior, and my daughter, a junior, never have the same testing schedule.  Beloved Spouse chose to be out of town yesterday, just for spite, I’m sure, so I had to juggle two cars, three sets of keys and one middle-aged, overweight, cranky, not-quite-awake mother to get everyone where they had to be on time.

Then, my favorite radio station, 98.3 The Twins, KTWS, played two songs back to back (Georgia Satellites’ I Love You Period and Little Feat’s Willing) that were just TOO country-sounding for this classic rock fanatic.  So, I called and whined until they agreed to play some Beatles to atone for their collective sin.

I stumbled out the door for the dog walks plugged in and wired to go with my portable radio because they had not played my request, I Should Have Known Better, immediately (if you can believe it—you would have thought they would have been so anxious to make up for their transgression they would have played the entire A Hard Day’s Night album posthaste but NOOOOOO) and, by golly, I wanted to hear my song. 

Eventually, after they went through a whole lot of useless nonsense like the news, weather and commercials, they finally played my song after they kind of screwed up and played the first chord from A Hard Day’s Night (you didn’t think I would notice, did you guys?) and I was happy enough to jiggle the leashes in a musical manner. 

To further increase my happiness, they later played Something, which has simply the best bass line ever, and then the “CD Sideshow” was Alice Cooper’s Killer.  It was all I could do to not wildly break out in an interpretive dance which you would think the neighbors would be used to by now but judging by the rapidly slamming front doors, I guess not.

Great day, right?  Then, my daughter came home from school for lunch and we got into a very large Dick-head argument that ended with me stomping out the door in the style of your typical four-year-old who had to turn off SpongeBob SquarePants.  I picked up my son from his test and came home only to pick up the fight with my daughter right where we left off.  She went out to the garage to gather her school things for her remaining class of the day only to find someone had broken into our garage and our car and her bag and stolen the cash from her wallet.

Really.

As I am taking her back to school she notices the gate to the backyard is open and I called my son, who remained at home, to go close it and to look around to see if anyone was still lurking about.  Y’all know how thieves simply adore lurking about.

I returned home after my own quick neighborhood scan to find my son furtively checking the garage armed only with a steak knife, Bic lighter and leftover firework from the fourth of July with which, I would naturally assume, he would cram into the thief after he had stabbed the perpetrator and set him on fire.

Don’t mess with my son.

The appearance of my would-be knight in armor started me to giggling to the point I had to make an emergency potty run. 

Then, the police arrived.  Are any of you old enough to remember the television show Barney Miller with the late Ron Carey as Officer Levitt?  That’s who showed up at my door.  Officer Levitt.

No, I did not laugh in his face.  No, I chose to screw this up by asking if he had participated in the law enforcement’s Polar Plunge to benefit Special Olympics and when he said he had not, I called him a weenie.

Really.

Oh, things were looking up now.

After hours of questioning us, together and separately, we finally convinced Officer Levitt we had not filed a false police report.  He left and we started comparing notes and found out, quite simultaneously and without any prior consultation (remember, we were all fighting with each other) we had unknowingly given duplicate answers to the cop’s questions which kind of explained why he was so suspicious of us plus he probably didn’t appreciate being called a weenie.

Beloved Spouse returned home, order was restored and Scully coughed hard enough to poot so everything was back to normal.

So to speak.