We are still missing Bean, but we've been enjoying our Bean memories. And when I got home from Costco on Saturday it was quite the novelty to be able to set the bags down on the kitchen floor instead of needing to make sure they were all out of reach on the counter while I emptied them. And I put chocolate chips on the bottom shelf of the pantry. That felt so decadent. Almost as decadent as leaving a pancake on the counter when we were rushing out the door to soccer. After the chocolate chip incident, the brown sugar incident, the whole wheat flour incident, and the corn starch (?) incident, I learned to keep nothing but canned goods on the bottom two shelves of the food cabinet. And still I have found canned goods slobbered on and hidden behind the toilet. Let's just say Bean was highly motivated by food, and keeping food out of his reach was quite a task. And now I bring you, upon request, the cookie story.
It was an icy, blah, no good day at Keystone and Dave and I just decided to call it quits and head home. Unfortunately we were delayed in making it home when he caught an edge on a catwalk and landed shoulder-first on the ice. One separated shoulder and a week later, and we were entertaining a good college friend, Brian, back at Casa de Meta. Brian was in town for some space alien conference or another, and his experience with dogs is mostly limited to the under 10 pound category. And I don't think his miniature poodles (Senior Carnitas and Mr. Excitypants) could ever prepare him for the food obsession that we faced on a daily basis with our Bean.
What does Dave's separated shoulder have to do with anything? Well, I'll tell you. My dear sister took pity on poor Dave and sent him a care package. Dave and I were at work when it arrived and Brian had not yet left for the airport. Being the wonderful and considerate house guest that he always is, he brought in the package and put it... somewhere. I can only imagine it was somewhere like on the counter? On the dining room table? On the floor? Somewhere other than on top of our locked refrigerator.
So I arrived home from work and it was eerily quiet. For years (at least 13 of the almost 15) I was greeted at the door with lots of barking and Bean jumped up and down on his hind legs begging to be fed his dinner. We kept the food in the front hall closet at our old house (with a warning on the door that to leave it open was to provide a dog food buffet) so I would usually feed Bean before I did anything else. But on this particular day, silence. I am sure I hung up my coat, and walked into the kitchen, looked around and then peaked down the hallway. And there was Bean, walking slowly, slowly towards me. Head down, tail between his legs. He could have been the poster child for puppy eyes the way he slowly looked down and raised just his sad eyes.
Knowing this look, I started to search for the reason. I found an empty tupperware under the table, and a torn cardboard box behind the arm chair. In the box was a lovely note from my caring sister about cookies. Cookies! Gone! (Shaking fist at the heavens.) When I called Beth to thank her and to tattle on Bean she mentioned there was a box of thin mints in there too. I hadn't even seen one single green piece of girl scout colored cookie box anywhere so I renewed my search and found an intact box of thin mints behind the couch.
Bean - couldn't resist the cookies, and knew to hide the evidence. But that guilty look gave him away every time.
Photo Credit: Martha Stewart
3 comments:
Ahh, I see he finally learned the Killian look guilty and repentant as hell look. I remember when they used to get into the food and Killian would look like he was about to fall apart and start crying while Bean would stare at us like "What? You obviously wanted us to eat that or you wouldn't have left it where we could get to it. What's your problem?"
Yes, looking guilty was learned from Killian, and not an inborn trait for sure! I have the fried chicken incident on my list of future stories.
Not unlike the time Grover grabbed a piece of bread from a much younger Luke. While Luke howled to the heavens, Grover stood there in full "Why is he crying? What did I do?" mode. Regrettably, he was given away by the crust of bread still in his mouth. In fact, with just the crust showing, it appeared Grover was smiling at us. Too concerned about Luke (Grover was then unused to crying children) he didn't think to hide the evidence. Grover could have learned from Bean.
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