Thursday, February 18, 2010

The Cookie: A Story of Lent

Today was so hectic, and I felt one step behind on everything I did!

And then, after a textbook meeting, my boss brought me one of the leftover chocolate chip cookies from the lunch the textbook company had provided. She's Catholic too. I said, "You do know it's Lent, don't you?" She said, "Yes, but I'm not fasting from sugar. Are you?" I am not. So I took the cookie with great joy.

It was a massive cookie, the size of my face. The chocolate chips were numerous, small, and high-quality. I could just imagine eating it with dinner later in the evening. The thought sustained me through my last classes of the day and the onslaught of students who needed to talk to me afterward.

I got home, dropped my bag, and went in to change out of my professional outfit into dog-walking clothes. In that short amount of time, Tula dug the cookie out of my bag and ate THE WHOLE THING, napkin and all!

As you might know, chocolate is bad for dogs. I'm always reading about how it can kill them. This is not Tula's first time eating it, though. She's eaten all kinds of poison things: chocolate, grapes, onions, narcissus bulbs. Somehow, she has managed to stay alive. But, they gravely inform me, the poisons in the these foods are waiting in her little kidneys to kill her later, the moment she eats just a little too much of the Forbidden Foods.

When your dog eats something poison, one easy thing you can do is feed her burnt toast. So I burnt some toast to black, smoking up the house so much I had to open windows. Then Tula turned her nose up at it. (She usually thinks it's a treat, but this is Canadian oat bread, so maybe she's just being patriotic for the Olympics.) She's finally eaten a little, and she seems no worse for the wear.

I just wonder if God had her eat my cookie because even though I'm not fasting from sugar I shouldn't be having little celebrations in the middle of Lent. He does, after all, work in mysterious ways.

1 comment:

  1. Too funny! Once I left a batch of fresh baked choc. chip cookies on the table cooling and the lab ate the whole batch while we were out. I thought for a minute I put them away before we left. He was really thirsty for awhile but that was it. Didn't know about the burnt toast trick.

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