DRAGONFLY DILEMMA

I was up early, wrapped up in my robe, sipping my cup of tea when I went into the living room to look out the front window to see if the newspaper had arrived. I could see it was waiting for me at the end of the driveway, but then something else caught my eye.

“Hey, Steven! Can you come here for a minute?”

My husband, Steven came in from the kitchen, carrying his cup of coffee. “Did the newspaper come yet?” he asked as he came over to the window where I was standing.

“Yeah,” I pointed out the window. “But look at all the dragonflies flying over our front lawn!”

Steven looked out the front window. “Wow, there must be fifty of them!”

“I know! I've never seen anything like it. Aren't they beautiful.” We watched as they hovered then dipped along our lawn. “What do you suppose they're doing?”

Steven shrugged his shoulders. “It's been raining so much, maybe something hatched in the lawn.”

I looked at the neighbors yards. “Then why are they only in our yard?”

Steven looked around. “Huh, that's weird.” We both watched as they frantically moved from one end of our yard to the other, but never crossing over to either neighbors'. “Must be something that only hatched in our yard.” he reasoned.

Just then a couple, out for a morning walked, stopped at our sidewalk to watch the dragonflies dashing and swooping along our grass. Steven and I backed away from the window.

“So...” I looked over at Steven. “Can you go get the newspaper for me this morning?”

“Why can't you go?”

“Because I'm still in my robe.”

“That's never stopped you before.”

“Well, I'm barefooted!” I lifted up a foot to prove my point.

“That's never stopped you either.”

“Please...” I whined.

Just then our son Alex came into the living room.

“Oh great!” I said giving him a good morning kiss on the cheek. “You're dressed, can you go out and get the paper for me?”

“Sure.”

I smiled over at Steven.

Alex opened the front door, then quickly closed it again. “Woo! Did you see all the dragonflies out front?”

“Yeah, aren't they amazing!” I answered.

“Amazing is right! There must be a hundred of them!”

“Oh come on, it's not a hundred.” I looked back out the window where our neighbors across the street were now staring over at our house. Alex walked over to look out the window. “I thought you were getting the paper for me?” I asked.

“I'm not going out there.”

“Oh, come on... they don't bite.”

Alex looked over at me and laughed. “That's not the reason I'm not going out.” He at Steven then back at me. “I'm not going for the same reason neither of you are going.” He nodded his head towards the window. “Because there's a crowd of people outside staring at our weird lawn.”

Steven looked over at me and shrugged his shoulders as Alex headed for the kitchen. “He's got a point.”

“But I love reading the paper first thing in the morning.” I whined.

Steven grabbed the television remote from the coffee table and handed it to me. “Looks like you're getting the news from this today.”