Nea Fane – Un Biet Român Pripășit în America / A Hapless Romanian Stuck in The US

It was a quiet, scorching Sunday morning, the kind where the sun filters stealthfully through the curtains and plants seem to wilt to death in front of your eyes.

Stan Pendula, freshly returned from his morning routine – dog walking, cabbage shopping, dog feeding, coffee making – suddenly, and without premeditation, decided to scoot over to his beloved wife for a little good-morning, good-vibes, good-energy exchange.

He hadn’t done anything remotely like this in the past two years. And now, without warning, he found himself glued to his lady. Ilaria was so surprised by the foreign presence beside her that she jerked her head in reflex and essentially head-butted herself.

And that’s when The Little Teddy Bear entered the scene.

A 100-pound Great Pyrenees mix with the self-esteem of a small dictator and the body mass of a prized hog, he had been watching his humans from a distance, one heavy sigh at a time. He was not amused. They were not to get together without his permission.

The Little Prince (a smaller, smug mutt) was already on the bed, at their feet, having taken a full three seconds to hurtle himself across the living room to the master bedroom.

As soon as Stan climbed into bed and that dull clonk of two heads colliding echoed in the air, Teddy Bear leapt over The Little Prince without touching him (a launch he had mastered years ago) and landed with one pyr-paw planted directly between his parents. A clear message.

Then came the second paw.

Then slowly, and with the kind of confidence only a dog with full dental and medical insurance and zero responsibilities can possess, The Little Teddy Bear inserted all four limbs and flopped – full-bodied, fur and all – dead center on top of both of them.

Stan tried reasoning.

“Buddy, come on. You’re heavy…” The dog yawned, drooled on his face, and pawed them both.

Ilaria gave it a shot.

“Who’s a good boy? Who wants a treat in the kitchen?”

Nothing doing. They had been Pyr-pawed into submission, and the only response was the soft sound of a satisfied exhale and the unshakable weight of 100 pounds of loyal sabotage.

Eventually, Stan gave up and reached for a pillow. Ilaria lay back and laughed until her eyes watered.

“This is fine,” she said, patting Teddy Bear’s massive rump, “Anyway, I had to wake up.”

Stan chuckled, resting his hand near hers under the warm mountain of fur.

And so they lay there: two boomers, two dogs, no regrets.

Maybe next year.

Any resemblance with real characters is entirely intentional.

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Notes:

A “pyr paw” is a well-known behavior among Great Pyrenees dogs (often affectionately called “Pyrs”). It refers to the way they lift one of their big, heavy front paws and place, or slam, it onto a person to get attention, assert dominance, express affection, or to say “don’t stop petting me”. It’s so iconic that Pyr owners often joke about needing reinforced thighs and emotional resilience.

The sketch below was generated with AI: the prompt was pretty simple, I didn’t want to give it too many details, yet the result is … interesting.