Look. I know. I should have been paying more attention. That's what a responsible person does. He pays attention to the dogs in his care. Because dogs can be unpredictable.

When I told Brianne about this I started the story with "you know how important it is to keep an eye on your child because you're also a parent" and then she wouldn't let me finish because she was screaming over the top of me "STOP COMPARING RAISING MY SON BY MYSELF TO HAVING A DOG."

Brianne doesn't understand that moms are supposed to stick together and not attack one another.

The point is, I knew better than to look away from Mr. Pants and Mr. Doodle when I had them off leash on a college campus yesterday.

Mr. Pants is staying with us this week which means that for the last three days this has been constantly happening:


Mr. Doodle loves Mr. Pants like a fat kid loves cake. Mr. Pants does not feel the same way about Mr. Doodle.

Mr. Doodle and I go for a walk every morning before I leave for work. I take him to the college campus next to my house because there's an open grassy area between all of the dorms where I let him off leash and throw the ball for him eleventy million times until my arm is about to fall off and then we go home and he sprints all over the house and never runs out of energy no matter what I do and Mr. Pants in the above video is just saying what we're all thinking sometimes.

It seemed cruel to leave Mr. Pants home while we went for the morning walk, even though Mr. Pants now has the soul of an angry 80-year-old man and he doesn't seem particularly interested in walks. So I've been taking him with us to the college campus. Mr. Pants usually wanders the area sniffing things and thinking about enrolling in the upcoming semester while Mr. Doodle and I do the eleventy million ball throw thing.

This has been going just fine.

Until yesterday.

Skylar happened to Facetime me and he was in the middle of screaming about the Equifax breach, which he is weirdly upset about right now. I don't mean that it's weird to be upset about the Equifax breach, it's just that it's weird that Skylar is so upset about it and he is upset about it in weird ways.

Until this week, I didn't even know Skylar knew what credit was. And I've never known him to be particularly concerned about protecting his personal information. But if you even casually mention the word "identity" to him right now, he will scream-lecture at you about how we're all going to die so convincingly that you'll want to amputate your fingers by the time he's done just so that you don't have fingerprints anymore.

As Skylar was somewhere in the middle of a sentence that started with "they have your social security number" and ended with "and I hope you have a bomb shelter and enough tinfoil hats" I faintly heard the sounds of the front door of one of the dorms open.

I noticed that a little white dog was sprinting. I saw it out of the corner of my eye. But I didn't pay attention to it right away. Because I was in the middle of telling Skylar that he is now my grandpa who still refuses to get internet because "the government will fill my home with pornography."

But I did look up just in time to see something that I had no way of stopping.

As the door was shutting, Mr. Pants ran directly into the building. Mr. Doodle was trailing him by two feet, slipping in at the last possible second, like that scene from Indiana Jones where he slides under the closing wall just in the nick of time.

The door closed.

The door clicked.

It was locked.

From Skylar's Facetime perspective, the next 20 seconds looked like a scene from the Blair Witch Project.

He saw frantic jumbled images as I ran across the field and all he could hear was "SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT [shaking the door frantically] SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT."

Skylar: What is going on?

Eli: The dogs just ran inside!

Skylar: The dogs just ran inside what?

Eli: The dorms!

Skylar: So go get them?

Eli: The door is locked! You have to have an access card to get in!

Skylar: Well didn't someone just barely open the door? Go ask them to let you in!

Eli: I don't see anyone! I don't know who it was or where they went! I was busy making a very funny joke about how you're my grandpa!

Skylar: Awe! I just thought about how cute it would be if Duncan and Ollie went to college!

Eli: THAT IS CUTE BUT NOW IS NOT THE TIME!

The upper half of the door had a window so I could see into the dorms. Mr. Pants was standing inside, staring at me through the glass, looking legitimately freaked out. Like he knew he had just done something wrong.

Duncan was sprinting up and down the hallway in the building, his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth, looking happier than I've ever seen him, like he had a new home now and didn't need me anymore.

I was helpless. I just stood at the door, totally unsure of what to do. There was NO ONE anywhere to be seen.

Every time Duncan would get out of the line of vision of me and Ollie, Ollie would start barking wildly until he sprinted back to us.

At least I wasn't dealing with this alone.

If only Ollie was tall enough to open doors.

This continued for about five minutes. Five ETERNAL minutes.

Do you know how long five minutes is? Start a timer and imagine that you are standing at the door of a college dorm building that you were recently told is not supposed to be called "dorm" staring in at your baby and someone else's baby with whom you have been entrusted, let the timer go for five minutes, and tell me that it does not feel like the length of Titanic.

THE MOVIE.

Finally. FINALLY. Some college fresh--err--first year student appeared inside.

She looked at Duncan, who was now running circles around her with a look on his face like he was asking her to be his new mother. She looked at Mr. Pants who was facing her, looking sullen. And then she looked at me, a creepy man with his face pressed up against the glass, peeking into the female dorm building on a Tuesday morning at 8:14.

As I now picture how this must have looked to her, I realize how hilarious this had to be.

She came to the door and opened it. Mr. Pants sprinted back outside when she did. Duncan noticed and did the same a second or two later.

"How did that even happen?" She asked me.

"Did you hear about the Equifax leak?" I responded.




~It Just Gets Stranger