Oh my heavenly sheet-wrapped dog!!!!!!!!!!!!

I didn't have to drive my husband to work this morning, so I got to sleep in for the first time in a while. It was lovely, stretching my feet down into the coolness of the sheets, blissfully squeezing my eyes shut against the morning sun filtering through the window blinds. Hershey came up to snuggle with me, giving me wet kisses on the ear and snuffling my hair.

"I know, I love you too," I said groggily. "Now go down to your place and leave me alone."

He went to the foot of the bed, where he pawed the sheets and blanket until he'd made a nest to curl up in, a process which I always find interesting and amusing. He's so picky in his arrangements, you'd think this wasn't the same dog who's content to throw himself down on his side on the cement porch and sleep for hours.

We both went to sleep, although I was awakened some time later by Hershey pouncing around on the bed. Since he's a forty-five pound muscular brute, that was a lot of heaving and jumping going on, some of it on me.

"Ow!" I said indignantly, lifting up my head and scowling at him through puffy eyes. "What are you doing, you big idiot?"

Hershey ignored me. His gaze was fixed on the sheets and his nose was down among them. He continued with the bobbing and weaving as if he'd just discovered a miniature Mike Tyson throwing punches and threatening to bite off one of his flappy ears. "Hershey!" I said sharply. "Will you settle down and stop acting like you see a spider? You are so annoying!"

I paused for a brief moment.

I don't know what the world's record is for throwing off a sheet and a blanket and leaping out of a bed, but if it is more than one second, I broke it. With time to spare.

With me out of the way, Hershey was free to stalk the ugly black house spider -- one of those kind that can jump -- and eat it. Smacking his lips, he looked at me and wagged his tail, pleased with his efforts to find and consume a little morning snack, and hopefully protect me from whatever plan that spider was concoting about my person. I patted Hershey's back, although I declined to let him kiss me with his spider-breath.

When all's said and done, I think I prefer the alarm clock as a means to get me out of bed in the mornings.