A ghost story, and a bad dog

My mornings are hectic. I have things to do before I head out the door. I bathe, comb my hair, etc. After getting dressed, I have to let the dogs outside, prepare their food, make the coffee, etc. Like most folks out there. In addition, I usually turn on the morning news while I putter about.

To tell this story, I have to give you some idea of the layout of my house. The kitchen is under the upstairs bedrooms. It’s divided off by a breakfast bar from the living space. The rest of the living area is under a vaulted ceiling, with a portion dedicated to a dining area, and the rest being living room. The master bedroom steps right into the space between the dining room table, and the breakfast bar attached to the kitchen. We have some tall stools that are permanently at the bar.

The area between the stools and the dining room table is about five feet wide. It’s just a walking area.

My habit is to take the dogs through this area, open the glass slider and let them out. Then I step into the living area and turn on the news before going about the rest of the stuff. The rest of the stuff is in the kitchen. This means I walk past the bar stools once more.

So I got the dog food measured out and placed. Made coffee, and stuck something by Jimmy Dean in the microwave. I also filled a baggie with some cereal cube things that I took for my lunch break. Then I walked back between the bar stools and the dining room table to let the dogs in. I returned to the kitchen to retrieve Jimmy Dean and eat. I also had to cut and feed my sourdough starter today.

What’s that? About four trips through that five foot area between the bar stools and the dining set?

There were two small bags of King Arthur flour, and my bin was empty. I added one bag to the Tupperware bin, but left the other one in the pantry. (More on this later.)

This whole time, I am looking out over the breakfast bar which abuts the kitchen sink. I used the sink multiple times. I can reach out and touch the bar stools from the sink area.

After the dogs finished eating, I picked up their bowls and headed for my easy chair. This is when I go over email and such, prior to my commute. This meant one more trip through that five foot area between the bar stools and the dining area.

All well and good, bulldogs in my lap, as per usual. Also as per usual, Frankie needed outside a second time. She’s done this since the day she arrived at our house. She needs to go after she eats for some reason.

I got up, tuned around, and headed for the sliding glass door.

One of the bar stools was away from the counter. Directly in front of my bedroom door, between its usual place and the dining set. It was also turned around backwards. I could not have walked past it without hitting it. I nearly couldn’t have come out of the bedroom without moving it. I would have had to walk past it five times without noticing.

My first thought was the dogs. They’re bulldogs, and bash and bluster their way through things… But we have a hard surface floor. It would have made noise. The dogs would have knocked the stool over before they managed to move it three feet and turn it around backwards.

So what happened? I have no idea.

***

In other news, let’s return to that second bag of flour in the pantry. Frankie has no idea what happened to it this afternoon. (Note the hard surface flooring.)