Every year I contribute some whiney complaint about the world and VA. This year is different. I feel positively ebullient so I will tell stories of my former life. The first concerns rotten butter. If you smoke cigarettes, you really can’t smell or taste with any finesse. I couldn’t.

When we moved over here to the country in 1989 from the bustling metropolis of Tukwila, I had inherited a refrigerator from a neighbor. This worked out well as we were renting until we got the lay of the land and found the right area to buy in. The refer sat in my garage for over 8 months before we moved over and we promptly installed it in the kitchen of our temporary abode. After about a month, I happened to get up early and make breakfast one weekend. Zooming about, I found butter in the butter door of the refer right where you would keep it. Hell, it even said butter right on the little flip up door. After a spell, Cupcake drifted in and immediately started complaining about some disagreeable aroma that smelled like rotten food. I dutifully took the trash out and also absentmindedly put the butter away. Several days later I was having my morning ritual of English muffins with fresh clover honey (again) when the Queen of Wauna announced (once again) that there was something nasally amiss. This time nothing could dissuade her from the hunt. It ended up at my face. We’d been out of butter for several days so she also wanted to know where I found it. Shoot, I ate far worse in Southeast Asia including monkey ball soup and Fig Newtons one night in the dark covered with those little black piss ants that used to get into everything. She wouldn’t kiss me for a month.

Several years later, I was sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper as I always did in the early morning before taking off. If women only knew how important it was for us to read the obits, the tools for sale and other earthshattering subjects, they would never pester us at this crucial time of the morning. Buff, the Bichon Frisé had a rash, poor dear, and I was the pill giver. Women don’t like to get dog saliva on their hands and dogs do not cotton to taking their pills civilly. Cupcake laid the prednisone pills on the table where she normally put my vitamins and said “Don’t forget to give these to Buff.” Deeply engrossed in whether Clinton was going to outlaw 30-rd clips for black guns, I absent-mindedly nodded. As I finished up and prepared to bug out, the Okesan asked again “Did you give those to Buff?” Give what to Buff? The pills?  Hell, I ate ’em.

Lastly, one evening I was cleaning up with Buckwheat jr. before I went up to bed. On the counter was what appeared to be powdered sugar. Well, hey Pilgrim. Powdered sugar usually means powdered dessert somewhere, right? I reached over and dabbed my finger in it and gave it the old taste test. Definitely not sugar but it had a weird taste for the kitchen.  I made a second pass over it. Buckwheat Jr. ran upstairs and announced I was eating unidentified powder off the counter. This caused Cupcake to fall to the ground convulsing in laughter. My fame for eating anything had finally preceded me. She and Buckwheat came down, and with straight faces, asked me if I had figured out what it was. I offered them a taste but no way doggies. When Molly, my labrador refused to lick it, I knew it was going to be ugly. Turns out Punkin was busting up laundry powder that had become clumped together and pouring it back into the box with a funnel. I don’t recommend it but it won’t kill you.  It cleans the palate, too. Sort of – you know -like when you’re at a wine tasting and one of those squirrelly Frenchie wannabes says “Here, ‘ave a table cracker. It will cleanse the palate before your next sip.”

I learned something that evening. If the dog won’t go for it, you probably shouldn’t either. I’m betting ol’ Molly Pop would have snarked down that rotten butter faster than you can say Jack Robinson, though. Anyone could have made that mistake. The butter wasn’t some horrible color of green and as for the detergent, it did look like powdered sugar. I’m not stupid, you know. I don’t eat just any old thing I find lying around.

Happy T-day and watch what you eat…