Musings of the Chronologically Challenged™ Fourth Generation

 
BLOG SON BLUES

Our friend and BlogSon over at Obnoxious Droppings is still not in full swing. Leave him a cheery comment or a nice little prayer. He'll appreciate it.


CONTINUING MAIL BOX EVACUATION


DOG STORY
Dedicated to Janis Gore -- who likes everything REALLY CLEAN!!!!
[I was going to save this one for Thanksgiving, but can't hold it any longer!]

~~~ DOG STORY ~~~

JASPER AND THE UNCOOKED YEAST ROLLS

We have a fox terrier by the name of Jasper. He came to us in the summer of 2001 from the fox terrier rescue program.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this type of adoption, imagine taking in a 10 year old child whom you know nothing about and committing to doing your best to be a good parent. Like a child, the dog came with his own idiosyncrasies. He will only sleep on the bed, on top of the covers, nuzzled as close to my face as he can get without actually performing a French kiss on me.

Lest you think this is a bad case of no discipline, I should tell you that Perry and I tried every means to break him of this habit including locking him in a separate bedroom for several nights. The new door cost over $200.

But I digress. Five weeks ago we began remodeling our house. Although the cost of the project is downright obnoxious, it was 20 years overdue AND it got me out of cooking Thanksgiving for family, extended family and a lot of friends that I like more than family most of the time. I was however assigned the task of preparing 124 of my famous yeast dinner rolls for the two Thanksgiving feasts we did attend. I am still cursing the electrician for getting the new oven hooked up so quickly. It was the only appliance in the whole house that worked, thus the assignment.

I made the decision to cook the rolls on Wednesday evening and to reheat on Thursday morning. Since the kitchen was freshly painted you can imagine the odor. Not wanting the rolls to smell like Sherwin Williams latex paint #586, I put the rolls on baking sheets and set them in the living room to rise for 5 hours. After 3 hours, Perry and I decided to go out to eat, returning in about an hour. An hour later the rolls were ready to go in the oven. It was 8:30pm.

When I went to the living room to retrieve the pans, much to my shock one whole pan of 12 rolls was empty. I called out to Jasper and my worst nightmare became a reality. He literally wobbled over to me. He looked like a combination of the Pillsbury dough boy and the Michelin Tire man wrapped up in fur. He groaned when he walked. I swear even his cheeks were bloated. I ran to the phone and called our vet. After a few seconds of uproarious laughter, he told me the dog would probably be OK, however, I needed to give him Pepto Bismol every 2 hours for the rest of the night. God only knows why I thought a dog would like Pepto Bismol any more than my kids did when they were sick. Suffice to say that by the time we went to bed the dog was black, white and pink. He was so bloated we had to lift him onto the bed for the night.

Naively thinking the dog would be all better by morning was very stupid on my part. We arose at 7:30 and as we always do first thing; put the dogs out to relieve themselves. Well, the dog was as drunk as a sailor on his first leave. He was running into walls, falling flat on his butt and most of the time when he was walking his front half was going one direction and the other half was either dragging the floor or headed 90 degrees in another direction. He couldn't lift his leg to pee, so he would just walk and pee at the same time. When he ran down the small incline in our back yard he couldn't stop himself and nearly ended up running into the fence. His pupils were dilated and he was as dizzy as a loon. I endured another few seconds of laughter from the vet (second call within 12 hours) before he explained that the yeast had fermented in his belly and that he was indeed drunk. He assured me that, not unlike most binges we humans go through, it would wear off after about 4 or 5 hours and to keep giving him Pepto Bismol.

Afraid to leave him by himself in the house, Perry and I loaded him up and took him with us to my sister's house for the first Thanksgiving meal of the day. My sister lives only 10 to 15 minutes away. Rolls firmly secured in the trunk (124 less 12) and a drunk dog leaning from the back seat onto the console of the car between Perry and me, we took off. Now I know you probably don't believe that dogs burp, but believe me when I say that after eating a tray of risen unbaked yeast rolls, DOGS WILL BURP. These burps were pure Old Charter. They would have matched or beat any smell in a drunk tank at the police station. But that's not the worst of it. Now he was beginning to fart and they smelled like baked rolls. God strike me dead if I am not telling the truth! We endured this for the entire trip to Karee's, thankful she didn't live any further away than she did.

Once Jasper was firmly placed in my sister's garage with the door locked, we finally sat down to enjoy our first Thanksgiving meal of the day. The dog was the topic of conversation all morning long and everyone made trips to the garage to witness my drunk dog, each returning with a tale of Jasper's latest endeavor to walk without running into something.

Of course, as the old adage goes, "what goes in must come out" and Jasper was no exception. Granted if it had been me that had eaten 12 risen, unbaked yeast rolls, you might as well have put a concrete block up my behind, but alas a dog's digestive system is quite different from yours or mine. I discovered this was a mixed blessing when we prepared to leave Karee's house. Having discovered his "packages" on the garage floor, we loaded him up in the car so we could hose down the floor. This was another naive decision on our part. The blast of water from the hose hit the poop on the floor and the poop on the floor withstood the blast from the hose. It was like Portland cement beginning to set up and cure. We finally tried to remove it with a shovel. I (obviously no one else was going to offer their services) had to get on my hands and knees with a coarse brush to get the remnants off of the floor. And as if this wasn't degrading enough, the dog in his drunken state had walked through the poop and left paw prints all over the garage floor that had to be brushed too.

Well, by this time the dog was sobering up nicely so we took him home and dropped him off before we left for our second Thanksgiving dinner at Perry's sister's house. I am happy to report that as of today (Monday) the dog is back to normal both in size and temperament. He has had a bath and is no longer tricolor. None the worse for wear I presume.

I am also happy to report that just this evening I found 2 risen unbaked yeast rolls hidden inside my closet door. It appears he must have come to his senses after eating 10 of them but decided hiding 2 of them for later would not be a bad idea. Now, I'm doing research on the computer as to "How to clean unbaked dough from the carpet."

[thanks to Christina, Swansboro, NC]



WHO SAYS THAT COPS DON'T HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR?
Actual 'COP QUOTES'

"Relax, the handcuffs are tight because they're new. They'll stretch out after you wear them awhile."

"Take your hands off the car, and I'll make your birth certificate a worthless document."

"If you run, you'll only go to jail tired."

"Can you run faster than 1,200 feet per second? In case you didn't know, that is the average speed of a 9 mm bullet fired from my gun."

"So you don't know how fast you were going. I guess that means I can write anything I want on the ticket, huh?"

"Yes, Sir, you can talk to the shift supervisor, but I don't think it will help. Oh ... did I mention that I am the shift supervisor?"

"Warning! You want a warning? O.K., I'm warning you not to do that again or I'll give you another ticket."

"The answer to this last question will determine whether you are drunk or not. Was Mickey Mouse a cat or a dog?"

"Fair? You want me to be fair? Listen, fair is a place where you go to ride on rides, eat cotton candy, and step in monkey crap."

"Yeah, we have a quota. Two more tickets and my wife gets a toaster oven."

"In God we trust, all others we run through NCIC."

"Just how big were those two beers?"

"No sir we don't have quotas anymore. We used to have quotas but now we're allowed to write as many tickets as we want."

"I'm glad to hear the Chief of Police is a good personal friend of yours. At least you know someone who can post your bail."

"You didn't think we gave pretty women tickets? You're right, we don't. Sign here."


MAXINE QUOTES

"As far as I'm concerned, the perfect bra is a sweatshirt."

"If you're not supposed to stick Q-tips in your ears, what the hell are they for?"

"Tried on a thong yesterday. I'm still trying to dig it out."

"I think I must be wearing a "wonder where they went" bra."

"I decided to take an aerobics class. I bent, twisted, gyrated and jumped up and down for an hour. But by the time I got my leotard on, the class was over."

"When you're feeling stressed out, I think it helps to make a nice hot cup of tea and then spill it in the lap of whoever's bugging you."

"I find it helps to organize chores into categories: Things I won't do now; Things I won't do later; Things I'll NEVER DO."

"I'd join a neighborhood watch, but my neighbors are very ugly."

[Ed: Some of my friends jokingly call me Maxine. I've wondered why they do that.]







posted by HCL at 6:37 PM