Coming Home

The best part of traveling with the NHRA Drag Racing tour was coming home.

On Monday mornings –  the day I wrapped up work and returned to the Farnival – no matter how late I went to bed or what time my flight departed, my eyes popped open at 4 AM. The anticipation of seeing my pack made my heart pitter-patter like a tap dancer.

Actually, preparations for my homecoming started before I even flew out of Nashville; I would park as close to baggage claim as possible – in the expensive garage – so that within thirty minutes of my plane’s tires hitting the runway, my bag, worn and frayed, would be loaded and I’d be driving – eighty miles an hour – on I-24 W to get home.

On the forty-minute ride to the Farnival, I’d counsel myself to contain my excitement, imagining acting calm and assertive as I nonchalantly walked through the kitchen door. I’d teach the dogs to greet their humans in a civilized manner by sitting and waiting to be touched.

Forget it.

The first five minutes after we saw (or smelled) each other was always sheer pandemonium, a blur of licking tongues and whipping tails, each dog clamoring for my attention as I clamored for their earthy-scented paws and wide-eyed, honest gazes.

Since I had been working and traveling for three months, I had had more than enough chances to break them of their rambunctious greeting, but I just couldn’t do it. And I still can’t figure out why. All I know is that when I came home, my dogs erupted with so much genuine adoration that it almost made up for the days I spent living without them.