Today’s chapter of Mundane Hijinx is all about meatloaf.
(Or is it meat loaf? Whatever. I like the one-word version.)
OK. So regular readers know my dog has a history of plundering food in the car. Which means everything that happened today is my fault. But really, I think my actions were defensible.
It felt like a meatloaf kind of night — a Monday, cold, dark December, the perfect weather for one of my local meat market’s bestest loaves. I stopped to pick one up after dropping Kate at her after-school play date. It was still frozen, in a foil pan, with a hard plastic lid. So when I decided to stop at the dry cleaner and pick up Alan’s shirts, it didn’t seem necessary to put it in the trunk or anything.
But alas. When I came out of the cleaner’s and found Spriggy hard at work on the floor of the front seat, I still didn’t think he’d penetrated the perimeter. It was hard plastic, and I’d only been out of the car for maybe three minutes. Of course he had. In only three minutes he’d opened the bag, dislodged the plastic and had put about four inches of tooth grooving on the surface, gnawing the semi-frozen surface efficiently and quickly.
“BAD DOG! BAD DOG!” I yelled at him. You know what he did? He growled at me. In other words: “Get your own meatloaf. This is mine.”
(I guess he imagined he was an Inuit sled dog, eating his meal of frozen reindeer meat at the end of the run across the ice pack. Only of course, as a terrier, he wouldn’t actually be pulling the sled. He no doubt saw himself as a coxswain of sorts, barking orders while standing on the cargo.)
But that was only half the fun. After I cooked the meatloaf and took it out of the pan to slice it, guess what happened? I dropped it on the floor, and had to yell, “Get back! Get back!” while I picked up the still-blistering thing and heaved it onto the counter.
We ate our portion from the unchewed end. My burned fingers still hurt. Spriggy got to lick up all the grease.
I’ve long suspected this dog has a guardian angel, or maybe a guardian poltergeist. Things just seem to fall his way, sometimes literally. Someone wanted him to have that meatloaf.
It’s Spriggy’s world. We’re all just living in it.
So, bloggage:
We all know that some cultures value virginity above all sense and reason, but you never thought you lived in one, did you? Well, you are wrong. I like Amy Alkon’s comment thread on this. Especially this one: She should have put the five grand towards a plasma TV. Her husband could enjoy that more than once.
Cute overload is the berries.
Why do people waste their time building websites like Fancy Parking? Because people like me will link to them, that’s why.
Dorothy said on December 20, 2005 at 12:44 pm
I confess. I am a Fancy Parker, on occasion. At church it’s handy cause I can pull straight out of a space when all around me are trying to back out, and trying to avoid the others still walking to their cars. At the office it’s helpful because I had been getting dinged on my driver’s side door too frequently. Now I “fancy park” beside a car that is already parked, making sure I match up my driver’s side door to his/her passenger door. Most people at the office drive solo and so it’s been reducing the number of paint licks and scratches on my door.
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mary said on December 20, 2005 at 1:22 pm
I had never really been around any Jack Russels until recently. Since I acquired Max and Smokey, I’ve become a regular at the local off leash park. Lots of JRs there, and my dogs seem to be especially fond of them. Smokey inparticular hangs with them, since he can be a bit sneaky and overclever himself. He’s a Lab, but hangs with this very cute mostly white JR at the park. Sweet dogs, they are. Spriggy knew that was his meatloaf, he just needed time to convince you it was.
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4dbirds said on December 20, 2005 at 2:17 pm
I’m a ‘fake’ fancy parker. I wait for those parking karma moments when I pull into a space with an empty space in front of it. Hence it looks like I fancy parked but I didn’t.
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brian stouder said on December 20, 2005 at 4:34 pm
Well, the key to really fancing parking – as Patrick Starfish will tell you – is to hold your pinkies as high as you possibly can, while gripping the steering wheel and driving the car into the spot.
The higher your pinkies, the fancier you are
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Nance said on December 20, 2005 at 4:38 pm
I fancy-parked in my Fort Wayne garage every time. It opened directly onto a street (not an alley), and it made a lot more sense to back in when you could see traffic coming and going than to back out blind.
Plus, I liked the sense of being behind a rising curtain when the door opened.
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Dorothy said on December 20, 2005 at 4:43 pm
Brian your comment made me almost do a spit-take all over my computer screen.
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Loulou said on December 20, 2005 at 5:02 pm
I’m a fake fancy parker too, at the supermarket. I leave my [12lb long-haired Chihuahua] at home to “guard” the house when I’m gone, but he sleeps on my bed, and lately when he nests in the down quilt and I try to pull it up HE growls at me. I guess he thinks I share his bed.
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Deb said on December 20, 2005 at 5:14 pm
The Cute Overload site yearns for a photo of a Jack Russel gnawing and snarling his way through a frozen meatloaf on the floor of a Michigan SUV with ‘Holiday’ lights shimmering through the windshield. Go for it.
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Nance said on December 20, 2005 at 5:21 pm
But I don’t DRIVE an SUV. I’d have to RENT one.
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brian stouder said on December 20, 2005 at 8:09 pm
Say a wordsmith question for Madame Telling Tales –
when you say cute overload is ‘the berries’ – where does that come from?
I recall reading somewhere that Lincoln used to have a saying about “getting down to the raisins” – meaning getting down to the bottom or the conclusion of a thing (based on a joke wherein a guy pukes and pukes and pukes, until finally he gets down to the raisins which were the first things he had eaten)
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Nance said on December 20, 2005 at 11:39 pm
I dunno. I had a friend who had a boat called “The Berries.” On the transom, very subtle and small, was a perky pair of boobs, with berry-like nipples. However, I’ve heard the phrase used to mean “the cat’s meow” and suchlike. That was closer to my intent.
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harry near indy said on December 21, 2005 at 5:49 am
i’m an old softy at heart, so cuteoverload.com had me laughing and saying “awwwwwwww…” at the same time.
as for fancy parking, it’s a low-rent gesture.
as for rehymenizing … geez, wasn’t there something called alum that used to tighten vaginas?
and as for losing 20 pounds and rediscovering fellatio … if the guy in questions loses 30 pounds and rediscovers gamahuching.
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