He was red in the face but pretty in pink

"The garbage collector called this morning," I said hesitantly to my husband.
"Oooh," he moaned with a grimace on his face.
"If it happens again they said they won't pick up our trash anymore," I reported the details of the phone conversation.
Pat nodded his head with resolve, "It won't happen again." But there was a hint of uncertainty to his voice.
It seems that our two dogs, Laverne and Charlie, had "greeted" the garbage collector on his early morning rounds.
Laverne is a 6-month-old Labrador retriever puppy. She is supposedly a purebred, but I believe she is part bear. Her paws are huge and her neck is as thick as a tree trunk. Laverne would never hurt a flea, but she could lick a person to death.
Charlie is our 3-year-old mutt. She is the most loyal dog we have ever had but her bark is fierce.
The mystery behind the garbage collector matter was how the two dogs had escaped from the confines of our fenced-in yard.
5:30 sounds
I had heard the screeching tires of the garbage truck as it stopped in front of our driveway at 5:30 a.m. to pick up our trash that morning, just as I hear it every week.
It's practically a ritual for me. Being a light sleeper, every week I am awakened by the truck stopping in front of the house, barely conscious I listen to our trash being thrown in the back of the truck. Rolling over, I always feel a sense of cleanliness knowing that a week's worth of trash is gone. As the truck drives away, the rumbling lulls me back to sleep.
But this week I was not lulled, I was horrified.
As the truck pulled up to our house, my subconscious state was abruptly interrupted to a full state of consciousness as I heard our two dogs barking madly at the trash collector.
"Get back!" I heard the man's voice break through the darkness of the early morning hours.
I rolled over and shook Pat. "I think the dogs are out of the fence!" I said in a frenzied whisper.
Gate open
A much heavier sleeper than myself, it took Pat few a moments to comprehend the situation. He got out of bed, looked outside and, sure enough, the fence gate was open.
The dogs were standing in the driveway looking proud, certain that the trash thief would never set foot on their territory again.
They very nearly accomplished their mission.
"It will never happen again," I begged the representative of the garbage company when she called later that morning. "Really, they would never bite anybody."
"We've heard that before," she said sharply.
I wanted to argue that Laverne and Charlie really would never bite, but I knew she was right. I can't imagine anything scarier than two black dogs coming at you in the dark.
Turns out, pink can be pretty scary at that time of morning.
After the dogs early-morning act of terror we kept a close eye on them, especially on garbage night. We were meticulous about making sure the gate was closed securely
All was well ... for about a month.
Familiar sound
Last week, I was awakened to that familiar sound of the garbage truck coming down the road. It was 5:25 a.m.
Before the brakes screeched in front of our house, the dogs started their maddening bark. Then there was the beeping of the garbage truck's horn.
I gasped.
Pat jumped out of bed, grabbed a robe and ran outside.
As he stood in the middle of the road, yelling for the dogs, he looked down.
In his haste, he had grabbed the wrong robe.
There he was, standing on the double yellow line, yelling for Charlie and Laverne, in my pink bathrobe.
gwhite@vindy.com