MY HOUSE GUEST SNORES

So, out of the kindness of my heart, I opened my home for the summer to a house guest who is not exactly related to me—and it turns out she has some habits that are a little annoying.

First, she snores. I didn’t really notice the snoring until Tom left for his Alaska fishing trip and the house got really, really quiet. “Zzzzzzz-thweeee. Zzzzzzz-thweeeee,” she breathes in and out, in and out. ‘Get your adenoids checked,’ I think crossly and move to another room.

Second, everybody knows that the worn-out, rust-colored chair in the living room is mine. It’s got all my important stuff around it: the book I’m reading, my crossword puzzle, my flash drive. It’s my chair. Everybody knows it . . .

Everybody, that is, except my house guest. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked into the living room in the past month to find her sacked out in my chair. Sprawled all over it. And she doesn’t make a move to vacate it, even when I glare at her. “What?” her body language silently challenges, acting all innocent. “What’s your problem???”

Third, I’m a modest person who needs her own space and privacy. My house guest doesn’t have a modest bone in her body. She just bops on into my bedroom any time she feels like it. She’s even opened the bathroom door when I’m getting out of the shower. Oh, there’s always a reason—she needs a drink of water, she just wants to socialize—always a flimsy reason.

You’ve probably figured it out by now. Poppy, the foster cat, is back for a few months while daughter Shannon spends the summer in Arizona.

So here she is (Poppy, not Shannon), shedding in my chair, napping on my bed, lapping water off the shower floor, and snoring.

And absolutely refusing to let me feel lonesome when Tom is 2,000 miles away, off on his adventures.


Poppy and Friends in 2009


(File photo necessary because Tom packed the camera when he went to Alaska to take pictures of the alleged 400-pound halibut and alleged 35-pound salmon that he plans to catch.)