Off Limits

He’s been talking for about ten thousand years.  Or at least that’s how it feels. My father, Lieutenant Colonel James, speaks mainly to hear himself talk.  I'm sitting across from him in the kitchen with my feet up on the counter. Meanwhile, Maggie, my German Shepherd, sleeps in a tight ball beside my chair.  Even when she sleeps, she looks alert, like at any second she could wake up and lunge at an intruder.   “Dad,” I groan at my father, interrupting him mid-sentence.  “I know the drill. Need I remind you this isn’t the first time I’ve been left alone while you went on your top-secret military missions.”   He ignores the annoyance in my voice and goes back to explaining things he has informed me of many a time before.  “You make it sound like I abandon you for months at a time, leaving you to fend for yourself,” he says. “And, besides, you won’t be alone.”   I roll my eyes, annoyed by his literal understanding of my use of alone.  “Yeah, Dad, I know.  I’ll have Maggie so that I’m not alone.”   “I wasn’t talking about Maggie,” he mutters under his breath.  “There’s something we should probably discuss before I leave.”