THE BOWL-HALF-EMPTY TYPE

About a dozen years ago, my wife and four kids and I were visiting my wife’s mother in her home. My wife’s mom (the kids called her MeMa--I guess that's how it's spelled) had two Chihuahuas. Well, she started the day with two Chihuahuas.

I’ll explain.

First, I should say I did not witness the event I am about to relate to you. I missed it because this happened during the time in my life when all I ever did was carry things to and from the car. We had three kids under 5 years old, plus a 10-year-old, and we had developed the unfortunate habit of taking them with us everywhere we went. Which is why I was somewhere between MeMa’s front door and the car when all this went down.

I was only out of the house for a couple of minutes, and when I left everything was fine, but I returned to the riot scene from Do The Right Thing. Except without the kickass soundtrack. Tragically, one of the twins – 4-year-old Harper – had been snuggling one of the tiny dogs and accidentally dropped it. The dog broke its neck and died instantly.

It was the saddest thing in the history of ever. Every single person was crying. Strike that. Every single person but one was crying. The one outlier was Harper’s twin sister, Mary, who was standing apart from the hugging and sobbing, stoically observing the situation.

At this point, I think I should note that over the previous 12 months, Mary had endured both a spinal tap and colonoscopy – occurring within just weeks of each other – all without shedding a tear or showing any negative emotion. In fact, during her spinal tap – a procedure which reduced me to a quivering, useless mess – she entertained the nurses and myself by rattling off her entire repertoire of jokes.

(Fast-forward to today. We are all, as a family, still waiting for the first instance of Mary behaving in any way which could remotely be described as “rattled.” The girl does not flinch. At anything.)

As such, I was not surprised by her muted response to the tragedy; I figured it was just how she was wired. And when she started walking in the opposite direction of the mayhem, through the kitchen and then the laundry room, I didn’t think much about it.

My ambivalence did not last.

The far wall of the laundry room was actually a sliding glass door which opened to the back porch. Through the glass I could see the dogs’ food dish and water bowl. Mary opened the door, bent over, and poured out half of the contents from the water bowl. She then calmly closed the door and walked back over to me.

Before I could ask her what the hell that was all about, she said, “They don’t need as much water now.”

Brilliant? Maybe. Odd? Absolutely. Reportable to mental health officials? Pending.

Seriously. I didn’t know then – and I don’t know now – exactly how to feel about what Mary did. She’s a teenager now, with a rather dark – and constantly present – sense of humor, so I tend to think the water bowl thing was just her way of whistling past the graveyard.

But if I ever see her pour out half a can of Keystone Light, I’m not gonna stick around to see what happens next.

© 2015 Lee B. Weaver