Quitting on Time

Once it gets to be about 4:45 or 4:50, Butter gets restless. I mean, really restless. He thinks it's quitting time and won't take "but I need 10 more minutes" for an answer.

Today, for some reason, was particularly bad. I blame it on all the rabbits that have been taunting him from the front yard. He spent a good part of the day whimpering and barking at them. And then there was the arrival of the mailman. And then the UPS man came. You know, the usual.

Just before 5, and for the few minutes after 5 I continued to work, Butter went beserk.

He ran in the office. He pawed at me. He ran out of the office and whimpered at rabbits, once he realized I wasn't following him.

He came back in. He jumped up on the bed in the office as if he could see out of the tall window. He hopped right back down.

He sat patiently and panted, staring at me while I worked. Do you know how hard it is to concentrate when a dog is sitting like this staring at you?


He left again. I heard a strange pawing sound and went out to discover he had somehow gotten the door from the kitchen to the hallway open and had run down into the basement in the dark by himself. I don't even want to know what he was doing in there.

He ran back upstairs and gulped a bunch of water. And then came back and pawed me.

Then, finally, I was done. Thank goodness because he was about one hot lap from driving me insane.

At least it wasn't like last week, when he got so annoyed with my paper-grading that he attacked the ones spread out on the floor. I think Conservative Boy told him to do that, actually.

What do you think, would the students believe it if I told them the dog ate their homework?