Rob's Soapbox - The Dog Ate My Homework

<p>While on summer vacation, I probably composed, in my mind, a dozen different soapboxes. Being away from the job makes me more creative and free-thinking; and even though I avoid the news like the plague during these times, my mind wanders to various subjects, ranging from the funny to the serious, the topical to the philosophical.</p><p>I don’t write these ideas down for a couple of reasons; first, I don’t want to work and I’m afraid I won’t stop myself at a couple of sentences and pretty soon…BAM! I’m writing soapboxes on vacation. Secondly, I’ve always figured that if the ideas are that good, they’ll save in my memory or come up repeatedly until I actually execute them. It’s just my process and it’s served me well.</p><p>Sunday morning before returning to work arrived, and I knew that a new Soapbox was on the top of my very long list of work-related items. While I had slowly climbed back into working a few days earlier, Sunday was going to be a long one. I did myself no favors by sleeping in almost later than any day during the past few weeks, getting me an anxious late start. For me, that’s 8AM and about 3 lost hours of previously expected work. I rolled over and realized my wife wasn’t next to me, which was somewhat of a relief as that meant she had gotten up and fed the dogs who are used to eating around 5 or 6 in the morning during vacation. Like any normal red-blooded American, the very next thing I did was grab my cell-phone to be met by a long text from my wife explaining that yes, the dogs had been fed, but she had endured a terrible night of not sleeping much, and was not feeling well (women issues I’m guessing) and so, she had laid down in the guestroom to get some more sleep.</p><p>This immediately presented some interesting challenges. We have a 19-week-old puppy; Sarge, the Black Lab, who has simultaneously reminded us of both the joys and horrors of having a puppy in the house. With Sarge, and our 8-year-old other Lab, Scout, both having just eaten and pooped, my wife decided to let Sa