A Swanzy Christmas: PART II

The second installment of "A Swanzy Christmas" can also be titled "Twas the Night Before All Hell Broke Loose." The narration that follows may, at times, seem surreal, too crazy to be true. Yet, like the sitar sings in the movie Moulin Rouge, "I only speak the truth."

Here begins, "Twas the Night Before All Hell Broke Loose."

I believe I ended the last blog post with us leaving the Kennedy's beach house at Dauphin Island on Christmas Eve after a long night of cornholing. This post picks up with us (Mark, Debra, Hunter, JT, and myself) in the car leaving Dauphin Island. On the way back into Mobile, we are still chit chatting about how awesome cornhole is, gossiping about all sorts of different folks, and reminiscing about Christmases in the past. Now remember, it's Christmas Eve - the most magical night of the year when miracles occur and childhood fantasies come alive. Even as adults, there is just something about this night in particular where we feel as if anything can happen. It just so happens that something does occur; although this something is neither miraculous nor magical.

While in the car, my dad receives a phone call from a strange number. And although Swanzys are notorious for never answering their phones even when they know the person on the other end of the line (we are a call screening bunch), they are particularly skeptical when it comes to strange numbers with out-of-state area codes. It was also Christmas Eve; a strange number didn't stand a chance of being answered. "I'll just let it go to voicemail; if it's important they'll leave a message," said Mark. Caller denied.

A few minutes later, however, Debra gets a call from the same number. "Just answer it," I exclaimed. And so, she did. After hanging up, she informed those of us in the car that it was the alarm company calling to warn us that our alarm was going off due to motion being detected on the sensors in our house. Great. They also informed us that they had sent the police to our house to investigate the situation. Even better. Everyone wants to spend Christmas Eve with the police, right? From there we began speculating about what had occurred at home. Mom was worried that a bunch of thugs had broken into our house and stolen all the presents out from under the tree. This was highly unlikely due to the fact that our house (at the time) contained four dogs: a rat terrier (small but a biter), an overweight boxer (dumb as a brick but friendly as an elderly greeter at Walmart), and two pit bulls (one sweet as sugar, one mean as a snake). We assured mom that our pack of dogs rendered the house thug-proof. Dad speculated that Tatum (a black cat of gigantic proportions) had jumped up onto a piece of taller furniture causing the motion sensors to set off the alarm. The guessing game continued.

All of a sudden, it hit us. JT and I remembered that Moose (the sweet as sugar pit bull) likes to stage a jail break every now and then. This means that Moose bends the bars of his box, or kennel, and squeezes through them to freedom. Once he obtains freedom, he then begins to rampage around the house doing who knows what. We convinced the car that Moose had escaped and was running wild throughout the house. He's a puppy, and puppies cannot be trusted. Mom and JT were worried that Moose was tearing into all the presents and unwrapping them one by one. Dad was worried that he was urinating all over the house. "Relax," I said, "he's potty trained; I'm sure everything is fine." To which JT responded, "Now, Whitney, that's just ignorant to assume." JT calling me ignorant got a few laughs out of the family, but Moose being loose (see a previous blog post on a similar situation) was no laughing matter. Dad was driving well over the speed limit in an effort to get home as speedily as possible. He said that JT and I could pay for his ticket if he got pulled over. How nice.

Speaking of paying for tickets, my parents were worried about the police coming to our house. Apparently, Major (my brother's boxer) had set off the alarm several times before resulting in the police being called to our house. After about his sixth journey to our home, one police officer said he was going to start charging for his protective services. In other words, my mom and dad were worried that they were going to have to pay a pretty penny for yet another false alarm.

Upon our arrival, we all jumped out of the car; JT and I being the first inside. No police had arrived as of yet. Moose greeted us at the door wagging his tail. We checked the presents under the tree. A few bows were untied, but no major damage was done. Then we saw it. There was an enormous puddle of dog pee at the bottom of the stairs. He had been locked up for a few hours; I guess he just couldn't hold it any longer. As exhausted as I was, I began the cleaning process. Mopping floors on Christmas Eve was not exactly what I had in mind.

About the time I got done mopping, the police showed up, two of them. They were young and were probably glad to have been called away from the station for a little action. I'm sure they were disappointed to discover that no guns or brute force was necessary; it was just a dog. My mom answered the door; they told her she had to fill out some paperwork. When we went back to the door to sign the papers, the two policeman were laughing. "What's so funny?" we asked. "It looks like he really had to go," they said. "What do you mean?" we asked again. "Well, there's a steaming pile of dog poop in the flower bed. It's (meaning the pile of poop) a big one," they chuckled. We all had a laugh about it, and then they left us with what remained of our Christmas Eve.

Right before bed, my brother and I opened our Christmas Eve pajamas. The pajama exchange is a Christmas tradition that has been carried on as long as I can remember. Everything seemed to go back to normal. We put on our new pajamas and settled in for a short (it was almost midnight by this time) winter's nap.

- W:)