Bones the Manipulator

I told my son that, since he didn’t take his folded clothing off the couch back, his pile fell onto the cushions and probably mysteriously slithered into the crack between the back of the couch and the cushions. My son found what he needed in the couch crack, petted Bones a couple times, and once again neglected taking all of his clothes upstairs on his way to get his shower.

Bones, lying next to the fallen part of the pile, mumbled something like, “good…still get a chance…”

“What was that, Bones?” I asked from where I was sitting with my computer.

“Nothing.” He looked up momentarily, but obviously looked guilty when he put his head down again.

“Did you make the clothing fall?” I ventured a guess. He nearly lived on that couch, and rearranged the blankets and pillows the way we might rearrange furniture.

“No,” he declared. A moment later he stated, “I might have stuffed them into the couch crack. Not that I had to try much. You take forever to fold them and people sit on them, pushing them close-in.”

“You stuff them…? Why would you do that?” I looked at him, exasperated.

“Frankly,” he took-on a heightened attitude of defense, “It forces people to spend more time at the couch, leaning toward me while they reach into the couch crack for a sock or shirt, and they usually stop to pet me because I’m watching them while they do it.”

“Geez, Bones,” I laughed. “You manipulate laundry in order to get people to pay attention to you? That’s… well, a little pathetic, really.”

“You do what you have to, to reach a dream.”

“Getting a couple pets on the head is your dream.”

“Each day. Yes.”

I nearly retorted again on his lack of perspective, then stopped. He was reaching his dream each day. How many of us can say that about ourselves? ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

#couch #clothes #bones #cushions