When I am home alone with the dogs Maddie takes an even greater interest in keeping me safe. Anyone who has spent time with me and Maddie knows how seriously she takes this job. Now, she’s not the “chew ’em all and let god sort it out” sort of dog. She’s really more of a “oh my god! uncertainty! I will press myself against you and shove my head in your face in order to shield you from the thing that I don’t KNOW!” sort of dog. This means that while she usually spends a lot of time pressed against me, she also spends a lot of time sitting or standing directly in my vicinity at full attention staring at whatever location she thinks might unleash uncertainty.
Right now, as I right this, she is sitting about 9 inches from me, at attention, staring directly at a box filled with the personal contents of my former desk (most of the contents anyway, there were a few things mysteriously missing, but you know). This box id 5 inches from her face. I really wish I could get a photo of this. All I can see it the back of her hippo head, ears alert, head cocked a bit to one side. Every few minutes she lifts her head tilts it all the way back so she is looking at me all upside down.
So, when I go take a shower she stands in the doorway of the bathroom looking out into the hallway.
While I am in the shower and Maddie is standing guard, Chester is free to impose his version of intelligent design on the world. From under the bed he will hear two atoms bouncing off each other in the living room and go tearing out there yelling, “MY NAME IS CHESTER!!! ME!!! CHESTER!! I AM TELLING YOU!! I am chester and you are atoms and you STOP BOUNCING!! Me! I am telling you to settle down. NO NONONONO NO!!! DO not move! there is no reason for you to move!!! MY NAME IS CHESTER AND I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU ARE MOVING SO YOU SHOULD STOP!!! STOP IT!!!” And I stand in the shower with a bar of soap crammed in my asscrack yelling “SHUT UP CHESTER”
And this whole time Maddie is plagued by uncertainty!! “Oh my god! is there danger? is it on the lady? is the lady safe? did danger go on the lady! I CAN’T SEE THE LADY!!!” At this point, I am existing in a mixed state of “covered in a delicious slurpee of danger” and “rinsing the shampoo out of my hair” I will remain in flux until she actually observes me, thus creating reality. So far she has not observed me covered in slurpee style danger, but it could happen! In an infinite universe with infinite possibilities I could be missing a toe AND be attacked by tub drain monsters ALL AT ONCE!!