Barrys Blog: Luci One Roomba Zero An unexpected move a year ago had me living in one place and my wife—Lisa—an hour and forty minutes away. She has a job she likes there. We own a house there. The house is paid for, so all we pay for her to live there are taxes and utilities. Surprisingly, this has worked out better than we expected. She’s here three or four nights a week. Long haul truckers are apart more than we are apart. Early on I resolved that when Lisa is here she shouldn’t have to clean up my mess. I make sure that my wash is done, the dishes are put away, and that the house is reasonably clean. To aid in this endeavor is a Roomba. A Roomba is a vacuum cleaning robot. Rosie (yes we named our Roomba after the robotic maid in the Jetson’s television show) finds her way around the whole house. She vaccums up a storm and when she is done she automatically heads to her docking station to recharge her battery for the next time she is pressed into service. This device works well, keeps the dust down, and the dust bunnies at bay. The engineers who designed this remarkable machine ought to be awarded a Noble Peace prize. (The engineers also had a sense of humor. As Rosie backs away from her charging port she makes the sound of a truck backing up: “Beep, beep, beep, beep!” She intones when she backs up—I laugh every time.) Before I get to the point of this story a word must be said about how we “rescued” Luci, the long haired dachshund, who lives with me. Luci had been abandoned. We had a schnauzer which we dearly loved (Julie Bean). We called Julie Bean “Beaner” due to her propensity to pass gas and stare at her backside surprised at what happened. She could clear a room with such an emission. She too, was a used dog, about four years old, when we adopted her. Suddenly, when she was about eight years old, she began losing a lot of weight. (Beaner had always been “big boned.”) The vet did exploratory surgery only to discover that there was cancer everywhere. We never brought her home again. We were crushed. We loved that dog. Someone said to me: “You grieved more over the loss of that dog than when you lost your mother-in-law!” I said: “I didn’t sleep with my mother-in-law.” At the time we were renting a 100 year old house. Lots of charm. Lots of drafts. There is nothing like the warm belly of a schnauzer on a cold winter’s night! After a protracted period of mourning it was time for another dog—and a change of breeds. Another schnauzer would always pale in comparison to Beaner. That would be unfair to a new dog. Someone emailed me a picture of Luci and it was love at first sight. An extensive search was done for Luci’s owners to no avail. The vet thought Luci was about eight months old when we brought her home. We purchased a book about dachshunds. Research AFTER a decision is rarely a good idea. The book only reinforced what we had already discovered. Dachshunds, the book said, are notoriously hard to housebreak. A 90% success rate is optimal. It was so bad at first I threatened to get an industrial accident sign to post, outside the house, to list how many consecutive, accident free days, there had been. In time she trained us to know when she needed to go outside. Luci is not fond of Rosie. I have seen YouTube videos with the critters riding Roombas. Such was not the case in our household. At some point there was a peaceful standoff. Luci would stay under the covers of our bed, where she spends twenty-two hours a day anyway. I would start Rosie when leaving for work. At some point Luci quit coming into the kitchen trying to run Rosie off. I figured she could bark her fool head off anyway. The house is well insulated, she wouldn’t bother the neighbors, and I figured she would get tired of the barking anyway. A peaceful standoff for almost a year was achieved, at least until the other day. Luci showed her distain for Rosie by doing what dachshunds do while Rosie was doing her job. Rosie encountered Luci’s “accident” well before it had solidified in any way. Then, Rosie proceeded to deal with a mess it was ill equipped to handle. Rosie only made things worse (picture finger painting by a pre-schooler!). It took me an hour to clean up and disinfect Rosie, the floor, and anything Rosie touched. Is there a lesson to be learned from this story? Sometimes life is messy. The best you can do is clean it up and move on. Oh yeah, another lesson is: if you have a dachshund, only run the Roomba when you are home! Peace! Barry Hoekstra, Pastor Saint Lukes United Methodist Church 6012 Youree Drive Shreveport, LA 71105-4414 saintlukesumc Email: BarryHoek@aol Church: 318.868.3616 Home: 318.868.1608 Cell: 318.880.7006 Friend me on Facebook @ Barry Hoekstra Follow me on Twitter @ barryhoek
Posted on: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 21:11:44 +0000
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