THE BATH

When the kids were little I decided to go to the grocery story alone. Dad was home working on the car in the garage. Morgan was 9, Rachel was 7 and Rebekah was 3, what could possibly happen in just a few hours?

Rachel decided to bathe Sugar as a surprise for me. Sugar was a longhaired, medium sized, Hinze 57 dog, and twice the size of Rachel. Rachel removed Sugar’s collar and with as much might as a 7 year old could muster, she lifted Sugar and began to place her in the tub. Sugar turned and gave her a look as if to say, ‘I hope you know what you're are doing?’

Rachel turned the water on, it was too cold and as the water ran over Sugar’s paws, she jumped out of the tub, trailing water behind her. Rachel turned; picked Sugar up around the middle and once again lifted Sugar into the tub.

Sugar sat quietly while Rachel poured pitcher after pitcher of water on her head, back and tail. Once again, Sugar made a break for it, this time water sloshed from the tub as she skidded across the slippery, soaked tile and began to shake the water from her hair; covering the walls, fixtures, towels, and Rachel from head to toe.
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“Hum,” Rachel thought, “I know just what to do.” Turning the water off, she poured shampoo on Sugar, who still stood on the floor, and began to soap her up from head to tail. ‘This is working great!’ Rachel mused.

Once all the shampoo was worked into the hair, Rachel began to fill the pitcher with water and rinse Sugar, who still stood on the floor. She rinsed all of the shampoo from Sugar’s coat, then turning around reached for the Bounty paper towels. Instead of removing one towel at a time to soak up the water, she took the entire roll and began to soak up the flooded floor. To her disappointment the Bounty wasn’t working as it had been advertised.



I arrived home to find Daryl still in the garage and Rebekah and Morgan watching TV. As I rounded the corner I saw water standing in the hall, did we have a leak? I opened the bathroom door and there stood Sugar soaked, Rachel soaked, a flooded bathroom and a whole roll of paper towels lying in the water. At the look of shock on my face, Rachel burst into tears. “Oh Momma, you weren’t supposed to see all of this until I was finished.” “It was to be a surprise!" I assured her I was ‘very’ surprised. “Why” I asked "didn’t you put Sugar in the tub to bathe her?” “Well Momma, she just kept jumping out so I decided it would be easier to just bathe her on the floor.”

Rachel is now 23 and I asked her, “What do you remember most about the time you bathed Sugar?” She answered, "One, that you still brought me Skittles and gave them to me anyway and two, you can’t believe everything you hear." She was referring to the Bounty paper towels.

Psalms 103:12
"As far as the East is from the West, so far has He removed our transgressions from us."