A MORNING IN RETIREMENT

"Please, God ! Don't let the butter take me down!" My eyes snap open and my hand comes down in a sharp swat on the night stand. I'm aiming at the alarm clock, but it isn't there. Instead, the ill-tempered bulldog is there, trying to catch up on the sleep he missed during the fourteen hours he was napping yesterday. He snaps at the intruder reflexively, leaving a sharp gash in my hand.

I scream, "Fuck!"

If I'm still dreaming, the bulldog will regard this as a command and the hand will be just the beginning of the pain. If I'm awake, the crimson river decorating the newly acquired designer sheets is real and the mattress beneath is ruined.

"Goddamn it, Barker! You're on the wrong side of the bed," I mutter, dragging myself by the ass toward the edge of the matress. Now the blood streaks the sheet in an interesting angle, and I pause for just a moment, blinking rapidly to bring the vision into focus. Hmmm, I think, staring at the blood streak as I might if I were trying to make sense of a Rorshack smear.

The sweet stink of burned popcorn still infects my nose hairs, and I can't wait to find out where it's coming from, but this fascinating blood streak may be the answer to a rhebus I've been trying to solve for days, so I pinch my nose to be sure I won't drown in the sea of popcorn butter I was dreaming I'd fallen into and squint at the blood streak. It looks a bit like a diagram.

Pipes! It's a series of pipes.

It's the solution to the coffee challenge I've been working on for the last week. All I have to do is run pipes from the main coffee pot in the kitchen to the office, the deck, the Florida room and the patio. That's how I can keep my cup full of fresh, hot coffee no matter where I decide to drink it!

I hold one gushing hand with the other, hoping to avoid pictures of pipes on the carpet, and rise with another mumbled "Fuck".

Barker's head rises from the pillow and studies me over his shoulder for a second. Then his chops shiver as if to say, "Shut up and bleed," and he goes back to sleep.

"Fuck" is one of the human words he understands best. It's the money word. Loosely translated it means do your stuff, you big-balled, over-pedigreed stud muffin. It's time to earn a breeding fee. Any other time he would already be humping, but sleep is his higher calling and the only other mode he knows with authority.

I'll have to wire the pipes to heat them before the coffee starts flowing or it'll be cold by the time it gets to the cup, I think, making my way toward the kitchen sink to treat the gushing hand. I'll need a system of buttons at the coffee pot to control which receptacle get's the coffee. And a method of insuring there's a fresh cup waiting for it at the other end of the line.

I let the cool water from the kitchen tap bathe my right hand and stare at the smoke-stained face of the microwave above the range. I can see the popcorn bag inside. It's mostly black. Vaguely, I recall thinking popcorn would keep me awake last night. I guess it didn't and I guess I set the microwave a little too high. Maybe, a lot too high.

All I have to do is keep a supply of fresh cups at each location. When I finish a cup, I can take it to the kitchen as I leave that spot, replacing it with a fresh cup. That way, there will always be a cup waiting under the dispenser pipe at each location.

"Rolph!" Barker, red-eyed and already slobbering, stands in the doorway recommending breakfast. It must be noon. Time for Phase Three of his three phase day, consisting of sleep, fuck and other stuff.

"In a minute," I tell him.

"Rolph!"

I understand that means NOW.

"In a freaking minute." I hate the word freaking. It sounds so preppy, but fucking is a dangerous word around Barkington unless you're really in the mood for romance.

"Rolph!"

That, too, means NOW.

"Look what you did to my hand, goddamnit."

"Rolph!" meaning, fuck the hand --where's the breakfast?

The cool water eases the pain, but not enough. The hand is throbbing. Now I realize the whole thing was my own fault for crawling into bed on the wrong side. The thought causes me to look up from the hand and stare at myself in the mirror mounted above the kitchen sink where I usually shave. It's a vacant stare, fueled by the realization that since Barker was on the wrong side of the bed, he must have slobbered all over a pillow. That would mean I slept on his personal slobber pillow and only the stiff bouquet of the popcorn butter prevented me from understanding that the instant I woke up.

My gaze drifts from my own eyes to my slobber-crusted jaw. I smear it with an elbow.

It was a brilliant stroke to mount the mirror in the window above the kitchen sink. There are bathrooms in my house -- six of them. But shaving at the kitchen sink spares me cleaning the bathroom sinks, which I have not used since I decided to perform all my morning ablutions at the kitchen sink and moved my toothbrush tools there. The window above the kitchen sink offers a splendid view of the gardens, and that's sacrificed by the presence of the mirror I mounted in the center of the window, but it's a worthwhile trade-off. Visitors ask ignorant questions about it like, "What's the mirror for?" It seems condescending to say, "For looking at the self," but how else can I put it.

The voice mail beep on my cell phone signals me. With my dry hand I pick it up and click in a number. "Hello, David. Doctor Proctor's office calling," a female says. It's Marianne at the vet clinic. "Just a reminder you and Barkington have a consultation scheduled with the doctor at four today. See you then."

"Rolph!" I'm not going back to that fucking place.

"You ready for breakfast?" I say.

"Rolph!" Do I have to send you an e-mail?

"A'right," I tell him, opening the door under the sink with a bare foot. As I stoop down and reach into the compartment for the dog chow I pause for a moment, my right hand still enjoying the soothing water above, and consider the back of the cabinet. The pipes from the coffee pot could come right under here and splay in appropriate directions. Easy peasy.

Using only my left hand, I open the dog chow and dump a portion into Barker's bowl strategically placed next to the kitchen cabinet six-inches above the floor on a small pedestal to mitigate the angle of stooping for the pourer and the angle of neck bendage for the consumer. It was a brilliant stroke.

I wrap the injured hand in a series of paper towels, liberate the burned popcorn bag from the microwave, trash it and then collect the cell phone. I'll have my coffee in the Florida room, I think, knowing damn well I'll be back and forth from there to the kitchen to re-nuke the coffee at least three times before I get to the bottom of the cup -- an annoying condition soon to be remedied by my new invention as soon as I make a couple calls.

Minutes later, I'm on the way to the Florida room, Barker limping along behind, drooling bubbles on the carpet. The limp is what precipitated the doctor appointment. It's a mystery to me as I see no injury. A visit to the doctor would nicely break up what would, otherwise, be a very busy day