Mikey

It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. We were going to travel further west that evening, to get a bit more of a head start on our travel home the next day at the end of a long week of vacation. We'd driven from Dayton to Ocracoke Island on the weekend - well, ferried the last part, of course - for our nephew's wedding, with a visit with Ashley and Garrett tossed in along the way, an overnight in Richmond, VA, a backtrack to retrieve the camera I'd left in the hotel room, and the unnerving discovery that the night clerk had pocketed our cash payment rather than enter us into the computer system. (He actually indicated a cancelled reservation, when we hadn't had a reservation to begin with!)  There had then been a two-hour drive each way on Monday to pick up our daughter and son-in-law who'd gotten a ride halfway down from Norfolk with her childhood cohort in "crime." (I sure hope those quotation marks are called for.)  On Friday we'd driven back to MD, which included an unanticipated couple-hour wait in stopped traffic due to a car fire on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel - which, let's face it, wasn't nearly as bad for us as for the folks whose car caught fire. Still, that long drive had left my back seriously aching, to the point that we'd decided not to go to the Orioles' game as we'd planned. I definitely didn't want to be too rough on it again just two days later.

So we had to think about it when my cousin in Ellicott City invited us to stay with them overnight. I'd planned for us to get about another hour further west after the wedding, making the next day's drive that much shorter. But we didn't have reservations anywhere yet, and we enjoy Matt and Jen's company, so took them up on their offer.  That was when we first met Mikey.

We'd heard him once before, when we'd visited for a pool party, but that day he was kept out of the reach of the company. Mikey was huge, maybe a collie-German shepherd mix, but he was also definitely showing his age. He didn't seem very amiable, and since my wife is nervous around big dogs, Mikey spent most of the evening in the basement after the introductions were done.

I awoke fairly early the next morning, and went downstairs to use the powder room. I noticed the basement door was open, but didn't think anything much of it, until I heard Mikey's distinctive growl through the closed bathroom door. When I was finished my business, I cautiously opened the door, but Mikey wasn't there. I started to make my way back upstairs to grab a few more winks of shut-eye. Except there on the landing, very clearly standing guard, was Mikey. I started to go up past him, and his posture and his growl made clear that I wasn't going to be allowed to go upstairs to where his people were.

I did eventually get past him, but it took a long time for me to convince him that I was maybe not a threat, and he kept a close eye on me even when he did finally suffer me to pass.

Mikey died today. He was a good and faithful guardian and friend. My heart goes out to my cousin and his family.