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JASPER AND THE UNBAKED YEAST ROLLS
We have a cocker spaniel by the name of Jasper. He came to us in the
summer of 2001 from the cocker spaniel rescue program. For those of you who
are unfamiliar with this type of adoption, imagine taking in a 10-year-old
child about whom you know nothing and committing to doing your best to be a
good parent.
Like a child, the dog came with his own idiosyncrasies. He will only
sleep on the bed, on top of the covers, nuzzled as close to my face as he
can get without actually performing a French kiss on me.
Lest you think this is a bad case of no discipline, I should tell you
that Perry and I tried every means to break him of this habit, including
locking him in a separate bedroom for several nights. The new door cost over
$200. But I digress.
Five weeks ago we began remodelling our house. Although the cost of
the project is downright obnoxious, it was 20 years overdue AND it got me
out of cooking Thanksgiving dinner for family, extended family, and a lot of
friends that I like more than family most of the time.
I was assigned the task of preparing 120 of my famous yeast dinner
rolls for the two Thanksgiving feasts we did attend.
I am still cursing the electrician for getting the new oven hooked up
so quickly. It was the only appliance in the whole darn house that worked
... thus the assignment.
I made the decision to bake the rolls on Wednesday evening to reheat
Thursday morning. Since the kitchen was freshly painted, you can imagine the
odor. Not wanting the rolls to smell like Sherwin Williams #586, I put them
on baking sheets and set them in the living room to rise for a few hours.
Perry and I decided to go out to eat, returning in about an hour. The rolls
were ready to go in the oven.
It was 8:30 PM. When I went to the living room to retrieve the pans,
much to my shock, one whole pan of 12 rolls was empty. I called out to
Jasper and my worst nightmare became a reality. He literally wobbled over to
me. He looked like a combination of the Pillsbury dough boy and the Michelin
Tire man wrapped up in fur. He groaned when he walked. I swear even his
cheeks were bloated.
I ran to the phone and called our vet. After a few seconds of
uproarious laughter, he told me the dog would probably be OK, however, I
needed to give him Pepto Bismol every two hours for the rest of the night.
God only knows why I thought a dog would like Pepto Bismol any more
than my kids did when they were sick. Suffice it to say that by the time we
went to bed the dog was black, white and pink. He was so bloated we had to
lift him onto the bed for the night.
We arose at 7:30 AM and as we always do first thing, put the dog out
to relieve himself. Well, the dog was as drunk as a sailor on his first
leave. He was running into walls, falling flat on his butt and most of the
time when he was walking, his front half was going one direction and the
other half was either dragging in the grass or headed 90 degrees in another
direction.
He couldn't lift his leg to pee, so he would just walk and pee at the
same time. When he ran down the small incline in our back yard, he couldn't
stop himself and nearly ended up running into the fence.
His pupils were dilated and he was as dizzy as a loon. I endured
another few seconds of laughter from the vet (second call within 12 hours)
before he explained that the yeast had fermented in his belly and that he
was indeed drunk.
He assured me that, not unlike most binges we humans go through, it
would wear off after about four or five hours and to keep giving him Pepto
Bismol.
Afraid to leave him by himself in the house, Perry and I loaded him up
and took him with us to my sister's house for the first Thanksgiving meal of
the day.
My sister lives outside of Muskogee on a ranch (10 to 15 minute
drive). Rolls firmly secured in the trunk (124 less 12) and drunk dog
leaning from the back seat onto the console of the car between Perry and I,
we took off.
Now I know you probably don't believe that dogs burp, but believe me
when I say that after eating a tray of risen unbaked yeast rolls, DOGS WILL
BURP. These burps were pure Old Charter. They would have matched or beat any
smell in a drunk tank at the police station. But that's not the worst of it.
Now he was beginning to fart and they smelled like baked rolls. God
strike me dead if I am not telling the truth! We endured this for the entire
trip to Karen's, thankful she didn't live any further away than she did.
Once Jasper was firmly placed in my sister's garage with the door
locked, we finally sat down to enjoy our first Thanksgiving meal of the day.
The dog was the topic of conversation all morning long and everyone made
trips to the garage to witness my drunken dog, each returning with a tale of
Jasper's latest endeavor to walk without running into something. Of course,
as the old adage goes, 'what goes in must come out' and Jasper was no
exception.
Granted, if it had been me that had eaten 12 risen unbaked yeast
rolls, you might as well have put a concrete block up my behind but alas, a
dog's digestive system is quite different from yours or mine. I discovered
this was a mixed blessing when we prepared to leave Karen's house. Having
discovered his 'packages' on the garage floor, we loaded him up in the car
so we could hose down the floor.
This was another naive decision on our part. The blast of water from
the hose hit the poop on the floor and the poop on the floor withstood the
blast from the hose. It was like Portland cement beginning to set up and
cure.
We finally tried to remove it with a shovel. I (obviously no one else
was going to offer their services) had to get on my hands and knees with a
coarse brush to get the remnants off of the floor. And as if this wasn't
degrading enough, the darn dog in his drunken state had walked through the
poop and left paw prints all over the garage floor that had to be brushed,
too.
Well, by this time the dog was sobering up nicely, so we took him home
and dropped him off before we left for our second Thanksgiving dinner at
Perry's sister's house.
I am happy to report that as of today (Monday) the dog is back to
normal both in size and temperament. He has had a bath and is no longer
tricolor. None the worse for wear, I presume. I am also happy to report that
just this evening I found two risen unbaked yeast rolls hidden inside my
closet door.
It appears he must have come to his senses after eating 10 of them but
decided hiding two of them for later would not be a bad idea. Now, I'm doing
research on the computer as to how to clean unbaked dough from the carpet.
And how was your day?
Because I damn sure feel like I still have "The Dumb".