Lunch with my Lunatic Dog

It’s 1 pm, and I get a phone call from the UPS store letting me know my scans are done and ready to be picked up. Great, I think to myself, I’ll go pick them up and maybe grab some lunch on the way home.

My dog, Nora, who’s a one year old boxer mastiff mix, is a little restless so I decide to bring her with for a fun car ride. Except that today, she resolves she doesn’t like car rides.

As we’re driving along, Nora can’t decide if she wants to sit, stand or lay down, so she does all three repeatedly. She’s panting, drooling, yawning, and I quickly realize I should have left her at home. I pick up the documents I needed scanned, and decide that I’d like a burger from Dairy Queen.

We wait in the drive thru for what seems to me at least a half hour, especially with a nervous dog, but it was more like five minutes. The guy hands me a chocolate dipped cone and my bag of lunch. Would I like napkins, he asks, as if he knows what’s about to happen. Yes please, I reply, essentially accepting the fact that this was indeed a bad idea.

Everyone knows that if you get lunch with an ice cream on the side, the ice cream has to be eaten first. It’s a non-negotiable. So I put my bag of delicious deep fried onion rings and cheese burger with only mayo, tomato and ketchup (because that is the only way to eat a burger), in between myself and my door to keep away from Nora, and take a bite of my child sized chocolate dipped cone.

Ohhh, what is this you are eating, I sense Nora ask me. She leans in to me, as if I’m about to share. I, however, am not, so I tell her to sit down, for the thirtieth time in the last half hour. I take a second bite and immediately start choking. In between trying to get Nora to sit, and trying to enjoy my ice cream cone, it went down the wrong tube and I am now dying and driving all at the same time.

Still attempting to get Nora away from my treat, that is now melting, and choking to death, I have to make a left hand turn. My bag of deep fried goodness decides it’s a perfect time to spill all over the floor by my feet, leaving Nora to feel like it’s now a giant free for all.

As all of this is happening, I’m still choking and out of my mouth flies some melted chocolate, right in the middle of my crotch. However, because I’m still trying to drive, breathe, and get the dog from under my feet all at the same time, I do not know where the melted pile of chocolate had disappeared until I got home and wondered if I had pooped my pants.

We’re about half way home and I see two police cars stopped on the side of the road. I’m done choking now, but Nora still wants my ice cream and can’t decide where or how to get comfortable, so I almost run through a red light. Right in front of two cop cars. Great. I look in the rear view mirror and I can see them watching my car. Awesome.

By this point I’m so over my ice cream, I just want it gone. And Nora has been a terrible dog, so why not reward her behaviour with a treat. I had already eaten all the chocolate so I hold out my hand with the cone in it and she sniffs it. Overcome with excitement, she starts licking it and as she’s doing so, ice cream is flying everywhere. My hand is now covered in sticky ice cream and copious amounts of dog drool. The car is also covered. I wipe up as much as I can with the multitude of napkins I was given – thank you Dairy Queen – and we continue on our journey home.

I can smell the remnants of what would have been my onion rings wafting up from the floor, and now the bottom of my shoes. I silently mourn their loss and abandon my desire to bring my big dumb dog anywhere else, ever again.

I park in my driveway, grab all of my belongings including my now full and happy dog, and shamefully walk in my house, with a brown coloured crotch, heavy heart and still hungry stomach.