a dingo stole my coffee

hatboy fills the cup full of java goodness. hot steaming coffee tickles our lungs and swamps our eyelids.

we make slurpy yummy noises and tippy-toe to the couch.

hatboy warns me not to spill a drop on the carpet, advice i regretably ignore.

“now you’ve had it,” he tells me. “the coffee dingo will come steal your coffee now.”

“coffee dingo?” i scoff.

he tells me of the time he spilt some coffee on the duvet. “just a drop, it was.”

the coffee dingo had come, silently sneaking through the house on his paws of much coffee-stealy. “i only turned to the television for a second. to watch the cheerleaders do their little dance, you understand?”

i nod, understanding.

“then, quicker than it took for them to do their jiggy dance of much eye-explodey, the coffee dingo slipped into the room and slipped out again, into the night. and i’ve never spilled a drop since.”

i asked if he actually saw the coffee dingo. hatboy shakes his head. “didn’t even see the swift flicker of its spooky shadow, and that was the creepiest thing about the entire incident.”

i think of the many times i’ve filched hatboy’s coffee. “i don’t think any nasty dingo’s going to steal my coffee,” i tell him. i’m very confidant about that.

hatboy shrugs. “it’s your spillage,” he says.

i place my coffee on the table beside me, and look about for the guide to foxtel’s night of horrors.

when i turn back, my coffee has been filched.

presumably, somewhere out there, in the dim dank night, a lonely dingo pads slowly toward a healthy shadow, where he sits back on his haunches, exhales a long sigh and, hugging my mug close to his hairy face, begins to softly sip that much-beaned goodness.

hatboy looks wise. “i told you so.”

“damn your super-sidekick powers of much dingo-knowy.”