The worst of the storm seems over. I stand by the front window coughing. It was a bad cough a week ago.

She, who has a bad cold each January of her life, had a worse one. They’ve both softened now. At first hers was like Lara’s cough in “Dr. Zhivago.” I don’t think Zhivago had a cough. His mustache just hardened with ice. That’s gross. I couldn’t do that. That’s why I shaved this morning. What makes a bad cold or any sickness worse, is looking like a homeless man. It’s an ego thing I guess, and I have a hyperinflated ego. If I were mugged and stabbed, I would go home and shave and trim my nose and ear hairs before going to the ER.

I stand by the front window, coughing and watching the wind turn the front yard into Petrograd. She is upstairs in her office with the door closed. She doesn’t think I can hear her cough. She is so proud that she got a bit better and I’m still in stage 5.

Earlier, I went up and knocked on her door. To lighten the mood, I suggested that we should play a kind of kinky fun game where I play Zhivago and she plays Lara, and we snuggle under the covers and talk about how the Cossacks have fled and that the sunflowers will come back in the summer.

“That’s it?” she asked. That’s all I had of the kinky fun game scenario. I am a firm believer in leaving the game open to improvisation.

She stifled a cough and turned away. She said that if a kinky winter’s day game was what I wanted, she might be open to playing June Cleaver if I play Ward and come home from work and we play board games. So much for kinky, I coughed and left.

I’m downstairs alone coughing. I let Jack out through the garage, because all other exits are blocked. I’m not going out there. In my condition I would have to get fully dressed with parka and boots and gloves. Not worth it.

Oh boy! Here comes that lady we keep running into downtown. What on earth is she doing? She’s walking her dog? It’s a blizzard. She loves that dog. She lives several blocks from here. Why is she up here? I think she does it to annoy me. I told her I don’t walk Jack. I like walking, but not being pulled by a 100-pound Old English sheepdog.

Here she comes. She sees me up here in the window and waves. I’m glad the upstairs cougher isn’t down here. She would return the wave, heightening the chance that the woman will come up to chat. If that happens, I’m going to cough like I have pneumonia.

Good, she’s passing by. Her dog sniffs at Jack’s snow. She jerks him away. I understand, she doesn’t want her expensive baby sniffing strange urine.

Her dog is called a labradoodle. I had to look it up. It’s a designer breed mix between a Labrador retriever and a poodle. Can you believe that? She said it cost $2,500. Can you believe that? $2,500? And it’s not even a purebred dog.

Jack is a purebred Old English sheepdog and he only cost a grand, and I thought that was ridiculous. My first sheepdog, one I got when I was 11, only cost five bucks.

After that, purebred sheepdogs’ price went up.

But $2,500? for a dog that is essentially, by the standards of the American Kennel Club, a mutt. Or so it used to be.

In my time, a dog that was a mix of one or two other dogs, was a mutt, a half breed. It was usually the result of someone’s dog getting out of the yard and hooking up in the alley, with someone’s dog from another neighborhood who also got out. They would meet, I presume, in a Disney fashion, by the light of the moon and mate. The results of that union would then be taken in by some family and given a common name like Rover or Pal.

Times have changed. Now, promiscuous Labs are thrown together by design with a cute poodle and their issue is registered, labeled and sold at high prices.

Jack is at the top of the hill now. He seems to have little interest in her Labradoodle. Of course he’s neutered, but I can’t imagine what the result of their meeting would be called.

I think I’ll go up and ask the secret cougher if she’s interested in playing Lab and poodle? It can’t hurt.

J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer.

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