Andrea's Kitchen
Clearing Up Confusion
No clouds were in the sky, and the sun easily shed its rays below. Tauna came out laughing as Andrea climbed out of her car. "Okay, what have you been up to now?"
"Nothing, I am innocent on this one. However, apparently, I need to stop reading your material so much. That, and you need to have a discussion with the one you call Mrs. Collins. She is in your kitchen, and so is..." Tauna roared even louder with amusement. "Her husband." With that, she hopped in her own vehicle and drove off.
Andrea wondered what it was about Mr. and Mrs. Collins being in her kitchen that had Tauna roaring with so much amusement. It was not like she had been writing any comedy pieces. So, that could not be the reason. Upon opening her door and going into that particular room of the house, she had almost choked.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Collins..." The lady was sitting at her table, all proper-like, as she alternated between reading a piece of paper and glaring at her husband. "But what is your husband doing in our dog's kennel? And why, pray tell, is my son's bike lock on its door?" Andrea sat down at the table, unable to look at the vicar, simply because she was going to lose it herself if she kept looking at a full-grown, Regency man, locked up in an extra-large dog kennel.
"I heard you say to your husband that if he did not behave himself, he was going to be made to sleep in the doghouse. And Mr. Collins was being stupid, even more than his usual." She shrugged her shoulders. "So, I made him get in and locked the door."
"And, pray tell, are those my uncle's military tags around his neck?"
"I thought you called them dog tags. So, I thought that when your men got into trouble within the home, they had to wear them."
"Oh, Charlotte." It was all Andrea could do not to fall off the chair laughing. "Let me explain those terms to you, but not before..." She took a piece of paper and a pencil. "I make sure Mr. Collins is back home." No need to have a Regency man with questionable IQ hear her talking.
"Is he really home?" Charlotte watched as her husband left for home, without the dog tags.
"Yes, waking from one really bad nap, and thinking your new neighbor's wife needs to get her meat from a different source. Now..." She turned and explained the terms 'being in the doghouse' and why the term 'dog tag' was used for the identification tags of military men in Andrea's homeland.
"What about these?" Charlotte handed Andrea the paper she had been looking at earlier. "Why tell someone to bite me? That seems rather stupid to me."
"People around here usually say that when they are angry or annoyed with someone else. Personally, I believe it is a rude way of telling someone to go away or that they want to be left alone. 'Bite me' is a slang expression; I do not believe it would be fitting for any appropriate formal setting."
The two continued going over the list before Charlotte finally left - without the piece of paper. It was only then that Andrea was left free to bust a gut over seeing Mr. Collins in her family's pet's dog kennel, wearing her uncle's dog tags.
'I so did hate having to send him home as quickly as I did.' That thought only caused her to roar even harder, and Abiah, who had come downstairs, shook her head; her mother had 'done gone and lost it - again'.