Things Are Often Not What They Seem



This week momma and I have been checking in on a neighbors house, getting the mail and watering the plants while they are on vacation. It was expected to be fairly routine: wake up, go for a walk and on the way home, stop at our neighbors house to take care of things.

When our neighbor, Mary, and her husband Steve, went on vacation they said, "We get our milk delivered so please help yourself." Momma was so excited, "MattieDog, we're going to have some farm fresh milk!" So on the first day, as we rounded the corner on our morning walk, momma started getting all excited, "When we get home we'll have some freshly made biscuits with honey and some of Mary's milk!" But, when we got to our neighbors front door... no milk.

"Oh well, we must have missed the delivery and Mary must have taken it inside before they left on vacation," said my momma, in her some what disappointed voice. As soon as we got home and ate some honey biscuits, our milk mishap was forgotten. The next day we woke early, took our walk, trotted up to our neighbors yard and this time the farm fresh milk was spilled all over our neighbors front porch. I sat and watched as momma sprayed down the milk and cleaned up the broken milk bottle. "I wonder how the milk bottle would have gotten broken," momma asked as she patted my head.

Night passed, and a bright, sun shine filled day dawned. Momma and I took off for our walk and for the second time when we wound our way up to our neighbors front porch, milk was spilled all over the deck. "Why would anyone do this?" asked momma. She looked at me rather puzzled and then cleaned the mess. "MattieDog, doesn't that seem mean...there's no reason for someone to be so mean."

Day four...we had to leave for our morning walk extra early and as we rounded the corner, in the darkness of the early morning, to our neighbors house we saw shapes moving around by the milk bottles. Momma halted, tensed up, and yelled, "Stop!" Four sets of beady eyes turned and looked at us....followed by hissing and my mommas screams. Off she ran, dragging me in tow, to hide behind a nearby bush. She stooped to pick me up and we watched as four raccoons tore the plastic top off the milk bottle to greedily, and rather competitively, lap the milk out of the bottle..ultimately spilling the milk and breaking the bottle, creating a mess on our neighbor's front porch.

After what seemed like an hour, the raccoons finally left. Momma laughed while she cleaned up our neighbors porch. When we got home momma poured out some milk for her, pulled out some freshly made biscuits from the oven and we nibbled our breakfast in the glow of the morning sun rise. "I guess I shouldn't have assumed the worse MattieDog," momma mumbled as she sipped her coffee. I considered what momma said... she thought someone had done something wrong. She assumed that a bad thing had happened, when really, what had happened was quite simple and truly innocent.

Momma's right. Don't assume the worst, most of the time it's not nearly as bad as you might think. Be generous with your heart and be kind with your thoughts... and don't forget to put your milk where the raccoons can't get it!

With love, MattieDog