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Man’s best friend, eh? That dog don’t hunt
Cheryl O'Donovan
Updated: July 23, 2012 4:37PM
The crime was about to take place in the kitchen.
I’d just returned
home from Jewel with a grocery bounty. As we have no counter space, the bags were on the floor. I figured, “Hey, I can put the
stuff away after the phone call. Give my son some space.” Dodging around him and throwing Campbell’s soup in the cabinets would be disruptive. So I loitered in the adjoining office.
Phone pressed to his ear, my son paced near the stove. An HR director had called him as part of an initial interview for his first part-time job.
From the office, I listened, wringing my hands.
My son is renowned for his honesty, once announcing that I was aging like Hillary Clinton. “Ma’am, I ace my tests at school, but forget to turn in my homework. I can be forgetful.”
I winced. At this rate, he’d be confessing to being an accomplice to Benedict Arnold.
It was then that the crime occurred. A plastic bag rustled.
I spun around in my chair.
In the kitchen, I saw the dog rooting around in a grocery sack. His tail wagged frantically, as if saying, “Wow, here’s where they buried the treasure!”
His furry beard moved in a chomping mode. To my horror, I realized he was snarfing down a deli bag containing roast beef.
Unable to shriek, I chased Kirby around my son’s legs.
“Wait a second, please.” My son gestured wildly. Pen. He needed a pen and paper. I dived for the pile of junk mail, grabbed a toothy health-club brochure.
Scribbling the address on top of a blonde posed in a J. Lo track suit, he confirmed a time for Friday afternoon.
I looked over. The dog licked his chops and smirked.
I scowled. Sandwiches were no longer a menu option.
“Kirby!” I hissed.
The next morning, my husband was in a mellow mood. He petted Kirby on the head. Please know that normally my husband is the warden to Kirby’s “Cool Hand Luke.”
“We got a pretty nice dog,” my husband mused. “Trained and everything.”
I spied the empty deli bag under the table where Kirby had dragged it out again.
And because I did not want to see my husband etching Kirby’s name onto a tombstone, I smiled and agreed.
