I didn't take the dogs out to go to the bathroom before going to bed for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, I was going to bed early. Usually I'm up well past midnight, but I decided to try and start my day bright and early this Tuesday, so I was in the bathroom finishing my bedtime routine around 11:30. This all matters because my wife had gone upstairs a mere hour and a half before me, and both dogs went outside to the bathroom with her, before the little one, the mama's boy, went to crawl into bed with my wife. These dogs can hold it for quite some time, so I figure even with the 1.5 hour start, both of them would be comfortable until morning, 6 hours away.

Second, we have a doggy-door. So really, our polly-prissy-pants pitbulls can expel whatever they want, whenever they want. They have compete, and one could argue, too much, freedom.

"Dad, please open the human door for us for no apparent reason!"

If you need to  pee. Go pee. If you need to poop, same thing. Go poop.

And finally, the last reason I didn't wake up the pups to take them out to pee is that I'm lazy sometimes. Most of all right before bed. And I didn't want to take them out, knowing the probable outcome of that action would be one of them barking into the night like a cacophonous metaphor for life, and then I would have to wrangle that metaphor back into the house.

Essentially, I let sleeping dogs lie. Just like they tell you too.

It did not work out well for me.

Grover slowly crept up the steps alongside me as I got ready for bed. He's a good boy (at the moment), and curls up on his bed in the darkened bedroom. After my teeth got brushed, I get to bed and Falcor is cuddled in tight next to Mom, and I have to pry him off her and the mattress. I push him inside his pita-pocket bed, which lies next to Grover, who I cover with a blanket. We are all in our correct and usual sleeping positions. Up until this point, everything is normal and according to plan. I have successfully gotten to bed pre-midnight. I will be awake fresh and early come sun up.

"Hi, I'm Grover. He's talking about me!"

An hour and a half later, 1:15am for those keeping score at home, I wake up to the sound of Falcor, the baby at 6-years-old (eye roll), crying. Crying is not barking. Crying sounds like a dog playing the violin at max volume, emulating the sound of a dying baby. It's tremendously difficult to ignore, unless you're a sociopath, and it demands attention.

"Hi, I'm Falcor! I'm the baby!"

I figure, this is my punishment. I didn't take him out to pee, and here he is, right on schedule, needing to pee. Could he just shuffle his ass downstairs, slip through the doggy door, and go to the bathroom himself? Yes, yes he could. But instead he's crying at the foot of the bed, so here we are.

I get up, I take him downstairs, and he follows hurriedly. When we get to the door, he veers right and starts slurping up water from his bowl. Did he really just cry because he's thirsty? That is some Connecticut level privilege right there little dog. I'm not amused. Post drink, he turns tail and runs back upstairs. He doesn't have to pee. Great. When I get back to the bedroom, Falcor refuses to get inside his pita. He wants to sleep right next to Grover under the blanket. He was crying this whole f'n time just to be put under the blanket next to his brother. You have got to be kidding me. He lies down. I go back to bed.

"I'm a model and I GET WHAT I WANT!"

Three minutes later I hear a dog shake himself off. I dare say that I can tell from the sound of the shake that it's Grover. Grover is not a real social sleeper. There is a reason there are two dog beds, and it mostly relates to Grover's varying sleep habits. In summer, he sleeps downstairs; In winter, he's up with us under a blanket. He only likes company when it's raining or he is otherwise scared.

Click clack go his nails down the stairs, over to the water bowl, and then I hear the doggy-door's tell-tale flap as he passes through. Falcor hears the same noise, and he's bolting downstairs to join his brother a few moments later. Great, I think. Go to the bathroom, then get up here and go the fuck to sleep! That's not what happened of course. What happened next was the sound of Grover barking.

Grover doesn't bark much, hardly at all. When he doesn't, however, it is as if he's saved up his voice in a super soaker, and when he unloads he sends sonic booms directly down the street towards our neighbors. When Grover barks, unlike Falcor, it means he's actually seen something, and he is not one to stop barking without some closure to the situation. One thirty in the morning, with the source of the noise outside our fenced in yard, is not a good time for closure. Even when I shook the bag of treats out the kitchen door, enough of a lure to get Falcor to come inside, Grover persisted in his nighttime protest of human beings being able to sleep nearby. More Barking, No Peace!

"I've got my head in the clouds, and my butt on my bro."

I legitimately had to throw on a robe and Crocs and run out to the far end of our yard to get that sonofabitch (not a good dog now) inside. Once in, I put a chair in front of the doggy-door to prevent any further nincompoopery, and order the dogs upstairs. I have lost my cool. I will not be able to get back to sleep quickly. I will not be awake fresh and early come sun up. I lie back down in bed, angry, preparing for the breathing exercises it will require to get to sleep tonight.

And then I hear a dog shaking off.

It is Grover again. I am broken, on the inside. Click clack go his nails down the stairs, and I remember that I just blocked the dog door. It is now that my initial laziness has finally boomeranged back and hit me. By the time I get out of bed, I'm giggling like a crazy person. I immediately realize that Grover got so distracted barking at Voldemort out in the distance that he forgot to take the shit he went out there to do. Now that I've flown over the Cuckoo's nest, this is hilarious to me. By the time I crest the stairs to help my fur-ball get some relief, Grover is halfway up the stairs. I see the goofy guilty look of desperation on his face, and he immediately turns and scurries to the door. It's clear that at this point he's really gotta poop bad. As I unblock the exit, he pops through and I stand vigil, preparing for one last search and rescue out into the cold of night.

Mercifully, Grover's bowel won this round and, as is his way, Grover bolted back inside post defecation. I reblocked the dog door and marched my ass directly to bed. Grover crashed on the couch . . . for about ten minutes, before coming up to bed and digging at the comforter blocking his body from maintaining direct skin-to-mattress contact. The kicking and rekicking of a comforter around like a bull facing down a matador is not a quiet process. I could have cared less. I was in bed for the final time. Graciously, my wife saved my sanity, got up and covered up Grover once again with the aforementioned blanket. And then, mercifully, there was quiet.

They are, admittedly, adorable (when they're asleep)

This morning, I woke up fresh and early . . . come 9:30.