Two Peanut Geniuses

(for the record, this note has nothing to do with peanuts, so if you were hoping for that, you might want to stop reading now or brace yourself for the disappointment.)

I went to my friend Jenn's this weekend with the boys (she is known on FB as Veiner Schnitzel, but she will always be a Peanut to me) she and her hubby and 4 beautiful girls live on a farm, so we packed up the dog and went for an overnight.When we got there, the kids decided to go play in the barn, there is a horse, and some chickens to go harass, so they all headed out. In a moment of ultimate blondeness, Jenn and I agreed that it would be okay for Rocky (our dog) to go too. In my defense- I assumed the chickens were in a coop, in Jenn's defense- she assumed that my 12 lb dog was smaller and therefore would leave the chickens alone. (I know that most of you are already laughing...) After a while the kids come and tell us that Rocky is "stuck" in the barn with the horse. I worried that the horse will spook and stomp on Rocky in front of the kids, terrifying them, and Jenn can't imagine what he could possibly be stuck in, so we head out to the barn. When we get out there, Rocky is no longer "stuck" but has decided that chicken chasing might be fun, and starts chasing them everywhere. The girls are nervous, but he isn't coming when we call, and for about a minute, the chickens are winning.

That was a really nice minute.

Rocky manages to get ahold of one. I believe her name was Mrs. Hen. Chaos ensues. The girls try to get across the horse pasture to where the dog and Mrs. Hen are. One gets stuck in the muck. Literally. Almost up to her knee, and her shoe is gone. Somehow Mrs. Hen is saved from the evil 12 lb. Chicken Chomping Machine, who is still on the loose and thirsty for blood. More yelling, screaming, chasing, crying and squawking. Rocky is now doing laps around the barn, and we can't catch him. I am assuming that he figured out that we weren't all cheering his efforts at being a real dog, so he ran around the barn one more time and was gone.

So.

Now we have a half dozen running, yelling, muck-covered children-at least one of whom is distraught and one who isn't wearing both shoes, two maternal idiots, one bleeding chicken, one missing dog (and a partridge in a pear tree) and it is almost completely dark. Could this get any worse? Of course. Sgt. G picks that exact minute to call (God has such a sense of humor). His response is "you better find my dog!!" Thanks. I recall being very polite and sweetly telling him that he was not being helpful and I couldn't really talk right then. He said that he would call back in 20 minutes. I didn't really figure he would be LESS grumpy in 20 minutes, so my plan was to lose my phone on the way back to the house. Rocky returned and Motormouth managed to grab his collar and drag him across the yard. We all head back to the house to regroup. There is enough light to see that Rocky is smeared with muck and blood and so Jenn and I are trying to get him past everyone and into the tub before everyone sees him and gets even more worked up. Sgt. G calls back. It has been 7 minutes. I tell him we found Rocky and hang up on him. I handle the dog cleaning and poor Jenn handles all the child cleaning and calming. She is WAY more awesome than me.
The chicken survived.
Rocky survived.
The shoe survived.
Sgt. G called back to let me know he had called back before because he realized he hadn't been helpful and was offering to drive out with a flashlight to search for Rocky and provide Chicken Disposal if needed. Everyone settled down, and Rocky was forgiven enough that he got to sleep in the house that night.

There really should be some sort of test for my job.