Whose brilliant idea was it to go to Costco on Thanksgiving week?
Ugh, the crowds.
We buy our dog food from Costco. I keep the enormous bag in the garage and a smaller bin inside the house. Yesterday, when I went to refill the bin, the garage supply was empty. Not a kibble in sight.
If I owned any other dog, I might’ve skipped Costco and grabbed a backup brand until the holiday madness died down. But Blue isn’t just any dog.
Blue has a very sensitive stomach. Her nickname is The Pukolator. When we first got her, we went through a nearly endless dog-food trial before we finally found the one brand, the blessed Costco bag, that keeps her digestive system from launching.
So off to Costco I went.
I grabbed the giant bag and lugged it to the registers… only to see the lines snaking all the way to the back of the store. At noon. On a Tuesday.
Yes, it was Thanksgiving week, but still, this was next-level chaos.
Then I learned why: Costco’s registers were down. They were only accepting cash.
Seriously? I never carry cash. I don’t even carry coins. Except for one quarter that I keep stashed in my car console for Aldi runs. That’s it.
I considered driving to another Costco, but I was already in too deep. A woman behind me sighed grumpily, “Good thing I wore my patient pants today.”
I informed her I had not worn mine. We bonded instantly. Misery loves company, especially in bulk quantities.
Finally, the line started moving. Maybe the system was repaired. Or maybe people had simply given up and fled to Trader Joe’s.
Luckily, Costco worked a miracle. Registers came back online, the staff opened extra lanes, and because I had only one item, they shuttled me to an express checkout line where all forms of payment were welcome. Bless them.
They handled the chaos beautifully.
But next year? I’m checking my dog-food supply on November 1st. I will not be caught up in Costco’s Thanksgiving shopping chaos again.
And Blue? She greeted me with ecstasy when I got home, as if she hadn’t seen me in weeks. Of course, she always greets me that way, so maybe it had nothing to do with the fact that she appreciates the lengths I had just gone to for her.
Now if I can get that kind of enthusiasm to rub off on my family, I’ll have a great Thanksgiving!
Sometimes we’re frantically looking for her, worried that she has gotten out of the yard.
She just watches us, amused, from her invisible perch.
That thumping, happy tail is what gives her location away.
The TV remote is also black.
It also gets lost in plain sight.
We have to frisk the couch, like they do to bad guys on cop shows, to find the remote.
So you can imagine that I was upset when I came home the other day to find Bob on one end of the house and the dog in the back yard, with the doggy door opened.
I had already declared the doggy door off limits since Blue brought in that dead rabbit.
Can you imagine sitting down and reaching around to move that lumpy thing from underneath yourself, thinking it’s a dog toy or the TV remote, only to find yourself elbow deep in a mangy dead rabbit?
Gaaaahhhhh!
Bob had the nerve to laugh.
And protest, because he thinks the doggy door is so convenient.
Too bad.
One dead rabbit in the house is more dead critters than I can tolerate.
So you can image that I was REALLY upset to come in to the house the next day to find Bob napping on the couch, and the doggy door open.
“But she had to go out,” he protested.
We had three dogs before Blue who did not have a doggy door.
We can manage without it.
I closed up the doggy door and sealed it with a much-more-than-necessary amount of blue painter tape.
Yes, I was sending a message.
Bob thought the entire episode was hilarious.
Until he went outside to do some yard work.
Blue immediately killed a rabbit.
And while Bob was cleaning that mess up, she killed another one.
