Something strange in the neighbourhood

You guys, you guys, YOU GUYS. Someone has been playing with the creepy mannequin behind my house.

As unnerving as it was seeing the dead-body-ish leg poking out from behind the pile of branches, it was nothing compared to driving home on a Sunday morning to see the mannequin rising, Lazarus-like, from the dead. The dog keeps growling at it from across the alley. I keep forgetting it’s there; I’ll back the car out of the garage and see it in the rearview mirror, and I gasp every time, EVERY TIME. I’m like Dr. Kimble: there was a one-armed man, you must find him. The fact that he is creepily standing at attention, staring into my backyard, is kind of getting to me. A few people have suggested I make friends with it; maybe take it a toque or a scarf, or at least cover up its junk – it’s cold out, we wouldn’t want the fellow to be suffering embarrassment due to shrinkage.

A couple of people have suggested I throw it in my garbage can, but really, this is a life-sized mannequin. Plus, just in case it was involved in some sort of kinky bedroom play, I don’t really want to touch it. Ew!

In other strange news, yesterday I took Barkley to the dog park and there were at least twenty-five little tiny dogs there, all wearing sweaters and all barking madly. It was strangely unnerving. I wondered if they were barking in fury because they were wearing sweaters, or maybe were they taunting the other, non-sweater wearing dogs. Maybe they were showing off: I’m wearing a sweater look at meeeeeee. Who can say? I can only comment that Barkley seemed unimpressed; he did not greet or sniff any of the yappy, sweater-clad dogs. Maybe he feels left out, like he showed up to the party wearing jeans when everyone else was in fancy dresses. Or, more appropriately, he went to the Ugly Sweater party in a regular outfit.

It was a bit of an odd weekend, and not just because of the raised-from-the-dead mannequin or the doggie sweater party that Barkley wasn’t invited to. The much-anticipated new washing machine that was delivered on Friday was found to have a hole in the drain hose. And this is where I give all you unmarried people a piece of advice: if you, like me, are untalented in the “handy” area, and you have a tendency to burst into tears when faced with a problem requiring handiness, MARRY A HANDY PERSON. Because my god, I was weepily grateful for my husband who was able to jury-rig a solution for me using duct tape and some clamp thingies. The hose – for those who are interested – is “housed internally” and so a repairman is being sent out, since the hose was not easily replaceable on a Friday night, with a crying wife standing amid a mountain of laundry. In any case, the repairman for my brand new washer which should be a thing of beauty and not a cause for my nervous breakdown is coming tomorrow, but at least the temporary – if ugly – solution is working and my mountain of laundry is no longer.

My husband and I headed out to Canadian Tire on Saturday morning, to get the clamp thingies, which surely have a name that I do not know, and we somehow ended up with icicle lights, a light-up deer in a grazing position, and a gigantic LED outdoor Christmas tree. Christmas decorations AND a working washing machine? These are things to be grateful for indeed!