Cesar Millan Doesn't Live Here

Anyone who has had a dog with an upset tummy knows the bland diet drill.  Boiled hamburger or chicken and white rice for a week and then slowly introduce the dog’s regular food over the next week.  Now I truly would lay in traffic for my dog, but I hate to cook.  When Jason and I were first married, I really did have more take out places than friends in my cell phone address book.  I hate to cook.  It makes me cranky. 

 One morning I had a craving for scrambled eggs.  I love scrambled eggs, especially with cheese in them.  However, we didn’t have any milk.  Not to be discouraged though, I discovered we did have Creamora milk substitute for coffee.  I thought, “hey, it works in my coffee, it should work in my eggs, right?”  Wrong.  I don’t think joint compound is as thick as the paste I created with that culinary concoction.  Nevertheless, I did learn a valuable lesson and I am now sharing it with you.  When without milk, water is a better choice for making scrambled eggs.

Moving on.  So here I was, in the grocery store for the millionth time getting bland food ingredients for my dog, and I was lost.  It baffles me that the same chain of groceries stores have different set ups for where they keep the same products.  Being that my attention to detail is nihil, no matter what I put on my resume, even attention to the big picture can confuse me, which is why what should be a 5-minute shopping trip is usually no less than a 30-minute event. 

Suddenly, during this latest shopping event, I came across the canned tuna aisle.  Slightly to the left was a small section that had low fat, low sodium canned chicken.  I had an epiphany and was in heaven.  I stocked up like the great canned chicken famine was coming.  I grabbed the economy-sized box of minute rice and I was on my way as elated as if I had won the canned chicken lottery.  One cup of rice and one can of chicken had a prep time of five minutes, most of which was spent waiting for the water to boil in the microwave.  No mess.  No clean up.  And most importantly, there was no cooking. 

One morning, I was running late for work and it was during one of Killian’s bouts of diarrhea.  I had enough time to get to work and make Killian’s breakfast at work, put him in an indoor run in the boarding kennel wing of the hospital, and not be late for my shift.  My coworker was busy doing the morning kennel shift when she saw what I was doing and she got a very puzzled look on her face.

“Michelle, does Killian like tuna?”

I had no idea where she was going with this but I answered with a quick, “I don’t know,” and kept going about my business because I had less than 5 minutes to feed my dog and be at the front desk.

Jan repeated her question, “Michelle, are you sure Killian likes tuna?”

“I really have no idea,” and this time I had tone in my voice because I was really scrambling to get him fed and not be late and I didn’t have time for chit chat about what Killian does and doesn’t like for seafood cuisine. 

“Well you’re feeding him tuna.”

I look down at the can and it clearly says chicken on it so I hold up the can and say with possibly more tone, “No I’m not, it says chicken right here.”

She takes the can from me and points to it, “Of the Sea.”

Oops.