Perhaps a year ago, the girls bought great lengths of rope from Harbor Freight Tools. Big thick coils of rope with which they told me they needed to attend to “ropish needs.” As a reasonable mother, I was concerned. As we stood in line to pay, my daughters’ arms laden down with kidnapping rope, I expressed my reservations.
“Ladies, you are going to use this rope to do something awesome and creative that will make me proud, right?”
Maj looked at me, “Ummmm, sure. You’re going to be all kinds of proud when I hogtie Kallan.”
Kallan shifted her rope in her arms, “Yes! Maj, that’s an awesome plan! You hogtie me and then I will hogtie you!”
Maj smiled, “Yes, that is the perfect plan, Kallan. Let’s do it in exactly that order.”
I sighed, “OK, well now I am all reassured. This rope buying is a fabulous plan!”
Kallan bounced with happiness, “I know! This is going to be great!”
I tried again, “Can you at least promise me that you are not going to tie up anyone who is not in our family?”
Kallan raised her eyebrows in dismay, “Mom, that sort of promise takes all the fun out of the rope.”
Maj agreed, “Mother, what exactly did you think we meant when we said that we had ropish needs?”
Sigh.
So then there was about a month or so last year when the dogs got hogtied and Maj and Kallan got hogtied and a neighbor or two got hogtied and games of kidnap and torture were played with great zeal and various items were dangled from various windows and a tree branch became a rope-swing support and laundry baskets were rope-hauled around the house and various feats of magic and daring and escape were undertaken on a nearly constant basis. There was a lot of happiness and a lot of screaming and a few rope burns but no serious injuries and life was good.
Eventually, the rope lost its allure, and it lay coiled up in big messy piles in the bottom of the girls’ closets.
Until Kallan decided this morning that she wanted to learn to lasso cows. She found the perfect length of rope and tied an impressive slip-knot to form a useful lariat’s noose. She swung the rope over her head in big whirling loops and ran about the back yard screaming for her cows to submit. Persie the Labrador played the role of big placid cooperative cow, and Jack the Terrier played the role of smaller obstinate evasive-dancing cow.
Maj stood and stared out the window as her sister ran screaming past, rope swinging above her head, a wild-eyed Jack racing and bounding ahead of her, “Really, Mother? Do you give no thought at all to your parenting choices?”
“You missed the part where I vetoed the branding, Maj. You would have been proud.”
Maj stared open-mouthed at me for a moment and then turned back to watch Jack vault to the top of the back-yard patio table and fling himself through the air as Kallan threw her lariat, “Your younger daughter is insane, Mother. Insane.”
“I’m on top of it, Maj.”
Life was good.
I sat on the couch and read a book.
It was a good book. I sat happily on the couch, engrossed in the words of another. So engrossed that I did not notice that Kallan and the dog-cows had come into the house to get a drink of revitalizing water.
I noticed nothing until a loop of thick rope swung through the air and over my head and past my face and then rested on my collarbones.
I had been roped.
Mooooo.
I turned to look at Kallan, “OK, first of all? That is impressive roping, babe. But second of all? What did we say about putting rope around a person’s neck? That’s incredibly dangerous, Kallan . . . you can’t do that. Especially with a slip-knot tied at the end, you just can’t do that.”
Kallan hurried forward to apologize and remove the rope from my neck, releasing her end of the rope as she stepped forward.
As the end of the rope went slack and fell to the ground, smaller obstinate rageful cow saw his chance to kill the flying loop of terror. He leaped forward and grabbed the end of the rope in his mouth and then pulled and shook and pulled. The rope’s slip-knot tightened smoothly around my neck. I reached up to pull it free, but as Jack met resistance in his tug of war, he pulled and shook and yanked even harder, growling and snarling in ferocious murderous glee.
Kallan was stunned and frozen, unsure what to do.
I was weak with laughter and leaned into Jack’s tugging, which only served to egg him on.
He went berserk. The rope grasped firmly in his snarling teeth, he jumped backward up into the air over and over again, swinging his head from side to side as he jumped backward and landed and then planted his feet and yanked.
ACK!
CHOKING!
Stupid motherfucking homicidal dog-cow.
I stood up and reached to grab the rope about two feet in front of Jack’s face and then lifted him up into the air. He flailed and fought and snarled like a demon fur-fish from hell. I held all 14 pounds of him at arm’s length, and Kallan and I stared at him as he kicked and spat and snarled and spun, dangling high in the air from the end of the rope he still held in his terrier teeth.
Kallan tried to calm him, “Jackie? What’s the point, dog? Look at you, spinning in the air like a piñata of evil. How embarrassing.”
Jack stopped kicking and hung limp from the rope.
He did not release the rope, and Kallan giggled as she watched his eye slide backward to gauge the distance he would drop if he opened his mouth.
A long drop for a small dog.
Jack looked back at us.
Hung limply.
Wagged his tail in hopeful apology.
I turned and delivered the dangling passive dog into Kallan’s arms. She caught him and snuggled him close, “I’m sorry, Jackie. I didn’t mean to traumatize you. I only wanted you to be a cowboy cow. You are not allowed to kill Mommy.”
Jack snorted his understanding.
Kallan released the dog and he trotted happily away. I pulled the noose from my neck and wound the length of rope into a circle, handed it to Kallan, still giggling, “OK, as horrific as that was? It was actually rather awesome. Who knew Jack had assassin skills?”
Kallan hugged herself happily, “I know! It was amazing! It’s like he’s a trained killer or something!”
“You must never do that again. He could hurt someone.”
“OK, but what if I am not a cowboy? What if I am a policewoman? Can he help me arrest people?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
And then there was Maj, her hands slip-knotted together, being dragged through the house by a snarling insane police dog, “Seriously, Mother? You told Kallan she could use a crazed killer dog to arrest me? What on earth is wrong with you?”
Kallan stepped into the room before I could answer, “Good boy, Officer Jackie! Bring me the prisoner and I will give you a treat! Treat, Officer Jackie! Come on, that’s a good boy . . . bring the prisoner.”
Maj looked at me as she followed snarling Officer Jack, her bound arms extended out in front of her, “This is the weirdest family ever.”
She turned to address her captor, “Tell your partner I am innocent, you stupid dog.”
Her voice grew louder, “I AM INNOCENT AND I WILL HAVE YOUR HEADS FOR THIS! YOUR HEADS WILL ROLL LIKE MARBLES!”
Life is good.
