We live in South Hill Village. It’s a tiny gated community of about 12 duplexs -  apparently all leased by Janice, our wise & cunning real estate agent.

More than half of us are 30-something Americans – all with no kids to speak of, unless you count our furry, four-legged ones.

So just between our duplex & the one next door, there are 6 dogs:

We have Maggie Moo. Felicity & Lawon, our duplex-mates, have Paco & Cocoa. Next to them is Joni & Dustin who own Bocephus and their duplex-mates are Amy & Alex who own Jacks & Brady.

(Did you get all that? Good!…’cause there’ll be a quiz later. Moving on…)

While it was no surprise for Maggie to have to get up & go potty outside in the middle of the night, it was a surprise that Eric took her. Normally that’s a job relegated to my pay grade.

So I laid blissfully in bed, awake – but still, blissfully content that I wasn’t the one who had to get up this time. (It’s not a common occurence, mind you – but you get the point).

About 20 minutes later I heard the distinctive clomp, clomp, clomp of Maggie & Eric climbing the stairs. Maggie crashed on the floor at the foot of our bed as Eric crawled in bed to tell me I had missed the midnight potty party.

 Apparently, Maggie was not the only one with that middle-of-the-night got-to-get-up feeling. Because as soon as she was out, Paco (the chihuahua), wanted out. And if Paco wanted out, Cocoa wanted out. So out come Felicity & Lawon.

Paco just loves Maggie Moo & barked happily to see her along the fence as Maggie ran circles in the backyard wanting Eric to open the fence between our yards to play. Then Bocephus (the bulldog one house over) awoke, began barking & wanted out, too. So out came Joni.

So there they were – my husband & my neighbors all outside at 12am laughing about the midnight potty party across the short fence lines & all thankful that Janice, in her infinite real-estate wisdom, lumped us all together.

Because no one can really complain when their dog barks & has to go out in the middle of the night.