Don’t mind if I do

Usually, though, I have to wait until they reach the gate, then only after making sure there’s nothing enticing or dangerous coming up the road, can I open the gate. The three of us, race to my car … where I fling open the back driver’s-side door, shoe them inside, and quickly close the door.

Once I was in such a hurry, I caught Ginko’s tale, and he’s never let me forget it. Now, he jumps in, quickly whips around to face me. Because of his size, Ginko prefers to ride in the back seat and stick his head out my window, which is usually open from me grabbing the mail on my way in.

Lilly, for the most part, dives into the front passenger seat for a better vantage point from which to kiss me to death while I try to drive up to the house. At times, she sits in my lap and hangs her head out the window. Once, when she was pretty young, she wedged herself atop the driver’s headrest, by using the roof and my head for balance — like a wild angel dancing on the head of a pin

That right there is why they are always crated in the way-back when we go somewhere.

So, the only time they get this much freedom is the drive from our gate to the house (about the distance of a football field, no traffic).

Last week, as we got closer to the house, however, Lilly started rooting around in the console between the 2 front seats. With eyes wild with joy from the bounty she unearthed, she proceeded to chow down on a stray dog biscuit I’d forgotten was there.

Maybe they do it where you live too, but if you go through a drive-thru (bank, fast food, parking garage) with a dog in the car here, they usually give you a dog treat too. I can’t remember who gave us this one, but I just tossed it in the console since I cannot reach Lilly’s crate from the driver’s seat.

So, there is sat, until a resourceful Lilly helped herself as if to say, “I don’t mind if I do…”