The Grass is Greener on Your Pillow

Growing up in my home we had the most annoying house rule: it was expected that if you got up from your seat at family functions when comfortable chairs were scarce, you would then forfeit that seat to anyone who was quick enough to take it from you. I'm not saying this was a good rule. It was as much a stupid rule as it was an annoying one. Can you tell that I lost my seat a lot? Somehow, Skippy, my possibly demented, autistic, senile, and eccentric Jack Russell, has learned this old family rule, and it's even more bothersome now than it was then.

Skippy likes to be close. If there are only three inches between you and the arm of the couch, she will wedge her way in and then brace her legs against the arm and push her her back into your thigh until there is enough room to settle in comfortably. If I get up for any reason, I've lost my spot. Even if she's on the floor, and I leave to get a drink or answer the phone, there is a Jack Russell now sitting where I once sat. And if you happened to have read my post, "Extremely Stubborn or Incredibly Lazy," then you know that this dog will not move. I've tested the strength of her resolve after she has stolen my seat by feigning to sit on her. She will actually let me apply a fair bit of weight before I have to yield and just pick her up.

Any pillow being used by someone else must obviously be better than the one Skippy is using. She tends to be even more brazen in her attempts to usurp other people's pillows. On a few occasions she has actually jumped on the couch and then backed herself in between me and the pillow I was leaning on, as if there was a little garage there to house her rear end. "Oh, my apologies. Did you want to lie on this pillow, Skippy? Here, let me get out of your way." Every night at bedtime, before my wife gets in, Skippy will always go to the head of the bed and lie on her pillow. If I happen to sit up so I can move her, she quickly jumps to my pillow, then stares at me with this look like, "What? I'm just going to sleep on this pillow. What's the big deal? We're family, right? You got up. That's the rule.

I was sitting on this couch not 5 seconds earlier. Can I at least have my Star Wars pillow back, Skippy?