The Glass Panel

The door we sometimes locked, sometimes didn't lock, had nine 5 x 7 glass panes in it. They were stacked three high and sat three across. The door was painted pale yellow to match the house. It was technically the side door, and the door that faced us when we pulled in to the spaces in which we parked. There weren't designated spaces. There wasn't even gravel. We did park near the garage, but not facing it. We faced the door.

When you walked through the door, you entered the mudroom. To the left was the bathroom and to the right was the door into the kitchen. At one point in time, it had been the back door. But, when they added the indoor bathroom to the house, they connected it with the mudroom. It had probably been the back porch at one point. The ceiling wasn't covered and the floor was simply poured concrete. It's where we started leaving the dogs while we were gone all day. It was supposed to keep them from getting in trouble in the house. No one was going to come home to chewed shoes, books or other personal items if the dogs couldn't get to those items. We shut the door to the kitchen and left the one hundred pound farm dog and the puppy in the mudroom - where the only accessible window was the bottom row of those glass panels.

It started innocently enough. Both dogs just wanted to see who had pulled in. Or at least, that's what I thought. Later, I realized they knew who pulled in. They knew the sound of the cars. When L pulled in, F was at the window. When I pulled, little B stretched himself as long as he could, and peered out the corner panel.

That corner panel didn't stand a chance.

It was late Fall the first time they knocked it out. I came home and there was glass on the floor. I swept it up and hoped that L wouldn't be too upset. She didn't really react at all.

'The dogs knocked out the window," I said.

She lit a cigarette on the stove and nodded.

There was a glass company a block away from the university, just across the street from the floodwall murals. I stopped and picked up a new pane and we slid it into the spot fairly easily, although we didn't know how to secure it.

"Super glue?" I asked.

"Duct tape?" L asked back.

We let it stay in place, but unsecured. It didn't take long before the dogs knocked it out. They liked that particular pane. Once it was gone, they started sticking their heads out the little space. They could see us getting out of our cars. We could see them shake and bark with excitement. It was heartwarming.

But not housewarming.

It started to get cold and the loss of the panel seemed to stand out more. I offered to pick up another one at the glass company, but it seemed futile if we didn't know how to make it stick. Besides, they'd just break it like they did the last two.

L had a bag of old clothes next to the door since I moved in. On a particularly cold late Fall morning, she grabbed a handful and shoved them in the hole.

The dogs couldn't break them. We spent the winter with old clothes shoved in the door. I didn't mind. I didn't really notice. It was one more quirk, one more quick fix that worked. I didn't need things to be perfectly mended, I needed things to be functional. We let the dogs back into the house during the day and dealt with the occasional chewed shoe.