What it Means to Have You

You Can't Be Serious

Home wasn't exactly what I had expected. Sure, it was a house... Kind of, but it wasn't any house I would find myself wasting money on. Run-down was an understatement, but it was still somehow standing on its weathered cinder blocks. The outside of the mobile home showed obvious signs of an attempt to be cleaned, but it had clearly gotten to a point where the effort was fruitless. Even though the structure was quite possibly the most hideous thing I'd ever seen, in front of it was a surprisingly well-maintained vegetable garden. It was a bit early to have much growing, but I could tell that it was ready and waiting for the last bit of chill from winter to disappear so things could get started.

I kinda wanna dig it up.

"Come on, boy, let's not prolong this any longer," the boy said as he tugged my leash and I followed him inside. I expected the place to smell, which, technically it did. I just wasn't expecting it to smell of sandalwood and... turkey? When he walked forward again, I followed, eventually ending up in the kitchen in front of a very shocked woman who I assumed was his mother. Her hair was graying and curled loosely, stopping at her shoulders. Laugh lines were very prominent on her face, as well as a giant pair of glasses that couldn't possibly need to be so large.

"Miguel! What on earth are you doing with that... dog!" The pause before finishing was likely due to her uncertainty of whether call me a dog or come out and say that I was a wolf. It was hard to miss, but I figured she didn't want her son freaking out, having realized he'd brought back a real wolf. The boy didn't seem to mind, though, because he put on his best begging face as his mom rolled her eyes.

"No, you cannot keep it."

Him.

"But Mom! He was sitting in a dirty alley! Look at him! Obviously whoever had him abandoned him!"

The kid's whining was annoying, but I bit back a growl in favor of being able to stay, though his mother still didn't look happy that I was there at all. She swallowed whatever dislike she had for me being in her kitchen and instead put on a forced smile and clasped her hands together in front of her slim frame and torn dark blue apron, which read "Kiss the Cook". There was a rip between the two s's, which kind of made it look like kill, but I had a feeling doing so, even though directed by the apron, would be frowned upon. So I just sat on my haunches and waited as the woman spoke to her son.

"How about this, Miguel. You go out and hang flyers with his picture and information, along with our number, and if no one claims him within a week, maybe we can work something out."

Looking around the tiny kitchen, I noted that it was spotless, but also lacking many things I had back at my old house. There was no toaster oven, waffle maker, crock pot. Hell, there was only a basic, old-fashioned toaster that looked as if it had been bought from a thrift store for five dollars.

Do I really want to live here instead of running?

It was a tough question to answer, especially because Miguel was now yelling happily and tugging at my leash, forcing me to follow after him into another smaller room. What I saw there had to have been a dinosaur. Literally. A huge computer tower sat beneath a desk on the floor as dust motes danced around it, trying to bury the poor device that should have been put out of its misery when the first laptop came out. Instead of throwing the thing out like he should, Miguel walked over and dropped into an even older looking computer chair, then switched the tower on. I didn't think it would boot up at all, but to my surprise, it sputtered and beeped, then the oversized monitor groaned and flashed to life.

When the desktop finally appeared about ten minutes later, I rolled my eyes. Not only was the thing older than dirt, but the desktop was completely cluttered with what looked to be junk. I only saw a few useful programs, the rest just needed deleting because over half looked like viruses.