Get out...

At the decided risk of renaming the blog This Dysfunctional House, I am compelled to tell this true story.

Monday nights are the parish bible study, led (more or less) by yours truly. Pause for a moment to consider the condition of lay biblical literacy described by the last seven words of the previous sentence.

All set? Fine.

Anyway, it starts at 7:15pm. Last night, we had to leave early as a family because, in the hullabaloo caused by the Great Pipe Break of '05, Heather had left the Buick parked at her friend's father's home. As we were getting around to leave, I noticed Lucy, our mutt and the world's only living brain donor (canine category) was trundling out from under our deck with something in her mouth.

What does she have n---[whiplash double take]---!

That looks like a skull.

A half-mummified animal skull.

Lucy trotted out toward the corner of the backyard, past the oblivious children, looking a little furtive.

"Um, Heather..."

"Yes, hon?"

"I think the dog's got a cat skull in her mouth..."

"WHAT?!"

I ran after the dog, who had dropped the whatever in the corner of the yard.

Barking Dad arrived.

"Lucy--get away from there!"

Lucy was not thrilled, but since this was the Big Alpha Primate in He. Means. Business. mode, she complied.

Agog, I looked it over, and I walked back.

"It's a cat skull. With some hide still attached to it. Uh, where did you bury that dead kitten you found a couple years back?"

Lucy has a fascination with moon craters--she gets a yen to build them in the yard quite frequently. Maybe she dug the kitten's remains up.

Heather insisted on seeing it. "Oh, no that's too big to be the kitten. And there's still an eye in the socket!"

Yep. Sure was.

The mystery was where the dog found it. We walked back--and saw the crawlspace door still yawning wide open. In the confusion, I had forgotten to put it back in place. Lucy must have smelled it and went under there to get it.

Our best scenario is that it went in to die before we bought the house and mummified there because our crawl space is narrow and dry. In fact, that seems likely. Our cats and dog would have gone nuts if it had gotten in there any time while we owned it. Either way, it's getting a deep burial.

OK. Now what? He asks with trepidation.