Driving Miss Bertha

Bertha Look-A-Like from the web.

 

 

What no dog bones? Six long faces stared at me last night. Midnight to be exact. And the six faces belonged to the six-pack.  I forgot one of the house rules . . . never, ever, ever, forget dog bones. We ran out. I didn't have a back-up plan. If I'd been a perfect dog mom, well, I'd have gotten in the car and driven to the 24-hour Kroger, but I was fat and sassy, having eaten out earlier in the evening with my boomer girl-friends at a Greek Pizza place. My tummy was full. I didn't need any more treats myself. It wasn't as if the dogs hadn't eaten supper. They did not have treats for bed.

 

If this was a children's story, I'd toss the keys to Bertha and send her out shopping with my debit card. But this is real life, so I did my best. I reached in the huge bag of kibble and pulled out a heaping handful of Iams mini-chunks, and, cleverly disguised as treats, handed a tiny little morsel to each dog as they stood there trying to see what I was dishing out.

 

Chloe was excited. Her tiny mouth was just the right size to make a mini-chunk seem maxi. Rascal, her roly-poly self, wiggled until I thought she would pop from excitement. I plopped a mini chunk in her mouth and she had no idea she'd gotten anything. She swallowed it as it hit her big pink tongue. She stared me down, one blue eye and one brown eye looking at me in disbelief. Bray, barked, and pranced about, his black hair flowing out as he raced up to me and then slipped backwards, not sure what he was staring at between my fingers. Being the skittish one, he wasn't sure if that morsel was friend or foe, or there at all. Perhaps I was trying to trick him. I could see he was worried. Being of good spirit, I offered him two mini-chunks, and his tiny pinkish black tongue darted out and grabbed them, so quickly, but gently. Then he turned and dashed out of the room. Miss April In Paris was game for anything. She grabbed her mini-chunk with gusto and ran into the sunroom with the tiny treasure wedged between her teeth. Annabelle, her lazy old self, was already asleep in the bed and had no idea she was being short-boned.

 

Bertha was not to be so easily convinced. She lives for bones. She behaves for bones. She expects bones at night when she is crated. She is the only dog that sleeps in a crate by the bed, the other dogs sleep with me. Bertha has a bit of a history . . . and at night she is best in her bed in her crate. She doesn't mind at all . . . because there are bones to reward her for being the odd dog out of the nest. There were no rewards tonight. Bertha went to her crate and curled up, one eye looking suspiciously at me, the one who forgot the bones. I tossed her twelve mini-chunks, which she picked at with her huge mouth until, one by one, she found them, and delicately ate them. It is amazing to watch her wide mouth so tenderly nuzzle a mini-chunk. She could lop off an arm with that over-sized jaw. She flung one last glance at me and turned her back to go to sleep.

 

I was exhausted worrying that I'd failed the dogs. They were happy to be in my bed and the bone incident was long forgotten. I could hear them snoring as I tip-toed down the hallway. Suddenly I was hungry. Starved in fact. It had been five hours since dinner, perhaps I should get a snack.

 

What goes around, comes around. I opened the fridge and stared at its well lit empty shelves. I pulled open the cupboards and all that greeted me was a can of tomato sauce, an odd assortment of spices, and several boxes of Barilla pasta.

 

No chips, no dip, no salsa . . .  oh yes, and no dog bones.

 

That was last night. Today I've been writing all day at my computer, getting ready for my blog tour with Women On Writing (WOW) that starts on Monday. I haven't left the house and it's almost seven pm.

 

Excuse me. I must run. . . Kroger is calling and I'm heading to get groceries. There will not be a repeat performance of last night. And since I am the only one with a license . . . just saying . . .