“George,” I yelled down the stairs. “Did you re-set the user name and password for the bank?”

I waited patiently at the top, not wanting to deal with the puppy gate and the need to tread down to the construction zone which is currently our basement.

No answer. Argh. I pushed the rambunctious dog out of the way and closed the gate securely behind me. I made a pit stop in the laundry room to check on the clothes in the dryer but shook my head upon discovering them still wet. George had set the knob on fluff – no heat. I re-set it and went into the main area of our basement, furniture stacked high as we are slowly pulling the thing back to life after our winter flooding event. George was not there.

I continued to search, eventually finding him in the yard, nailing a horizontal post onto the bottom of the fence where the dog had dug a new escape hatch.

“That looks good,” I said, inspecting the work. Gemma sniffed around the post and ran past us, excited that we were all out in the yard together. “Do you think it will hold?”

George stood up and stared at it. “For now. We’ve got to stop her digging,” he said with irritation. We stared at our beautiful creature, now finally free of her cone after being spayed. The vet questioned us on her energy level apparently surprised when only moments out of general anesthesia she ripped out her IV and tore out some stitches. Explaining she had two speeds, either a ten or dead, he wished us luck.

George had laid new sod last spring before Gemma was a twinkle in our eye. We watched her now, across the yard, inspecting the super attractive bright orange netting around the sod area.

“Manic to Mannerly starts next week,” I said, referring to her latest round of obedience classes. “Hey. Did you change the login and password for the bank?”

“It’s on the desk.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere on the desk.”

“Why didn’t you put it on the password list?”

George didn’t answer. We were distracted as Gemma loped like a gorgeous quarter horse across the yard and leaped over the orange fence, directly into the no-go zone.

“Goddamnit,” George let out a string of expletives as I shook my head and headed back inside. He had his hands full.

Arriving in the office I searched the desk, filled with paperwork and dozens of post-its stuck in random areas with scribbled ink. We have different styles when dealing with clutter and it often leads to arguments. I glanced out the window as Gemma swung past, carrying a mouthful of sod. George was re-staking the no-go zone area.

“Shit,” I said, under my breath. I was going to have to be nice to George for the rest of the day.

Eventually I uncovered the pertinent post-it. It had a chewed-on corner by Gemma who had gotten into the twenty pack of new post-its and left her mark on the corner of each pad. Determined to do the right thing, we didn’t throw them all away and get fresh ones, but all our post-its now looked mangled.

I spied the pastel-colored post-it with ‘Bank’ scrawled on the corner of the chewed bit in a pen which was in the last moment of its life. Under that was written ‘Supercilious’ followed by several numbers and symbols.

“Is he kidding me?” I said, staring at the note. “Supercilious? WTF. He can’t think of something simple? I can barely spell that! What the hell does that even mean?”

George is an intellectual type and has always used big words. I hated it when I had to look his shit up. He does this on purpose, just to vex me. The word means condescending, or disdainful, or overbearing. I glanced out the window. Was George sending me a message? Should I be nicer to him?

Maybe I shouldn’t have yelled at him this morning for forgetting to put a filter in the coffee machine. (But I cleaned the loose grounds out of thing for about ten minutes.) Maybe I shouldn’t have yelled at him about leaving the pan and spatula on the counter after making eggs. (It had hardened and required a good deal of scrubbing.) Maybe I shouldn’t have told him we needed a fourth coat of paint on the wall in the laundry room. (I really thought it needed it). The list is very long.

But Supercilious? Hmmmm. I changed the password to Insidious. Volley it back, George.