"Why is there a dog in our room?"

The first stage in answering such a question when it occurs in the middle of the night is to establish the following facts in order to properly engage the brain:

"Who am I?"
The Anxious One, 1 part blogger, 2 parts wage-slave, 3 parts hair, 700 parts incessant worrier

"Where am I?"
In bed

"Why am I?"
I don't think we've got time to deal with that issue right now...

"Who is that?"
That's your co-habitee (for want of a better term)

"What is going on?"
Your co-habitee has just asked you the following question:

"Why is there a dog in our room?"

*brain whirrs*

The fact that he's asking "why" there is a dog in the room rather suggests that there *is* a dog in the room. Added evidence comes from the fact that, a few weeks ago, he asked the question: "why is there a cat in the room?" at a similarly ungodly hour and, having heard the unmistakable sound of "landing cat" followed swifly by "mewing cat", it transpired that there was indeed a cat in the bedroom. This one, in fact.

However, cats being known for their agility in such activities as jumping on roofs and clambering through windows, this was less surprising a prospect than the presence of a dog in our bedroom. The last time I had checked my "pet ownership inventory", we didn't own a dog. I might add at this point, though, that this fact did little to deter the cat.

I looked around the room in the darkness, to which my eyes had now become accustomed. I couldn't see, hear or smell any evidence of a dog. It would be a very unusual dog indeed who didn't make his/her presence felt in at least one of these ways. With this in mind, I ventured, tentatively:

"Hon, there isn't a dog in the room..."

"Over on the left," said the co-habitee.

Now, at this point, the co-habitee was lying on his front, so his left was my right. I look to my right - no sign of canine activity. I decide to look to my left too, just to be sure. Equally, no dog to be seen. I guess if one were stretching one's imagination to the maximum, the hanging rail with clothes draped over it (putting things on hangers is *so* last year dahhling...) could, in combination with the right kind of tobacco, resemble the shadow of a large poodle. A large, silent, inanimate, unscented, two-dimensional poodle.

Examining the evidence placed before me, being:

• an absence of anything remotely canine, and
  
• a notoriously verbose somniloquist co-habitee

I concluded that I would be best advised to go back to sleep, safe in the knowledge that there were no dogs in my room.