The Dog Barf Spatula

I love Thanksgiving. It's the one holiday we always plan to spend with my husband's family in rural Nebraska. This year, the celebration was held at Mark's parents' home, where we stay when we go "home" to Nebraska.

I like it when Dave and Nancy, my in-laws, host Thanksgiving because I get to be very involved in the meal preparation and I enjoy it. Thursday was no different. Nancy started some of the food early that morning while I was doing my workout and getting myself ready for the day. Dave took his precious black labrador, Molly, a Thanksgiving feast of her own: a huge bowl of turkey fat that Nancy had skimmed from the drippings while making gravy.

By the time I entered the kitchen, Nancy was ready to take a bit of a break, so I poured myself some coffee and took over the food preparation. Dave, Mark, and a couple of the kids were busy getting the garage area warmed and ready. This was where our feast would take place since it is clean and large enough to fit the entire Jurgensen family.

Emily came in and announced that Molly had puked all over the sidewalk. I must admit that I didn't collapse in shock or anything since upon learning that Dave had fed his dog all that fat, I quietly predicted an outcome similiar to this. I was just glad that it wasn't my problem to fix.

Dave then came into the kitchen and helped himself to one of Nancy's Pampered Chef spatulas, the type used to scrape remaining bits of food out of a bowl.

"What do you think you're doing with that?!" Nancy inquired.

"I need to scrape the puke off the sidewalk. I was thinking a spatula would work well for that."

"Oh no you don't! Not my good spatula. Take an old worn one and do NOT bring it back. It can be used for that sort of thing and kept with your stuff outside."

Nancy handed Dave an older, worn spatula, the type used to serve food from a pan, and he went on his way.

A few minutes later I was doing dishes and was hardly aware that somebody had dropped something into my dish water. I reached into the sink to fish out the next item to be washed and found myself holding up a spatula. It looked as though it had been used to serve lasagna, but, well, we hadn't had any lasagna.

I stood frozen in the moment with my hand holding the spatula in front of my face, my mind racing, my breathing completely halted.

"DAVE!" I shouted.

I didn't even have the awareness or control to make my voice quiet and for the first time in the entire eleven years I've known my father-in-law, I was yelling at him, "WHAT?....IS THIS...DID YOU..." I couldn't even make a sentence I was so miffed.

"Yea, Jen," he said calmly. "Just wash it up."

"But, I'm washing dishes that...they contained food...people eat food from those dishes! This is DOG BARF!" I said incredulously as I held the spatula before him.

He stood there, and couldn't hide his irritation with me as he said firmly, "Just don't think about it, Jen. Wash it up. It's no matter, it's fine."

After a hesitation where I was trying to regain my composure, trying to make my brain think coherently again, trying to find a way to be respectful, I said, "Okay. It's okay; I've got it."

For those who don't speak the language of Dave/Jen, this meant, "I will deal with this in a mutually satisfactory manner and you need to leave my presence--right now."

Dave turned and left.

I sat the spatula on the dishwasher door carefully and looked up at Nancy with desperate eyes. I threw up my arms, motioned at the spatula, shook my head and looked at her.

"I know! This is what I have to put up with all the time," she empathized.

"But I was about to wash my coffee mug! I am not washing my coffee mug in dog barf water!" I exclaimed.

The spatula remained on the dishwasher door as I contemplated its fate. I emptied the sink, sanitized the sink, put the dish rag I was using in the dirty laundry basket, and started over fresh and new with the dishes I had left. When I was done, I gave the dog barf spatula a swish in the dish water, emptied and cleaned the sink again, and put the spatula in it's own section of the almost-empty dishwasher. I set the dishwasher to "Heated Wash" and "Sanitize" and "Heated Dry" in an attempt to kill anything and everything on that spatula. When it came out clean, I stashed it back behind some stuff on the counter.

And I'm praying that Dave never finds that spatula, because if he does, I know he will put it back into general kitchen use. I'll realize, in a future visit, as I'm serving lasagna onto plates for a family meal, that the spatula I'm using, is indeed, the Dog Barf Spatula.

The Penguin Thief

Last night Mark and I met up with some very dear friends of ours for an evening that consisted of test-firing a couple of pistols, enjoying some wine, experiencing the trendy atmosphere of The Pour House, and an aerobic marathon session of intense laughter and epic stories. This evening will be a much-treasured memory for the remainder of my life.

Our friends, Karl and Becky, told the best "parenting adventure" story of all time that involved a mutual acquaintance:

My husband's high school classmate and his wife had taken their kids to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha this past summer. The three year old wore his very own back pack so he could tote his water bottle and various other things a young boy would find to be important. He enjoyed all the animal exhibits, especially the outdoor pond where some small penguins frolicked. The fence was low so he could easily see them play in and around the water. The penguins were one of the last things they looked at before leaving the zoo and making the two hour trip back home to Friend.

When the boy got home, he headed upstairs to his bathroom. From downstairs his parents heard him run some water. This was followed by the sounds of three year old giggles and laughter.

Curious, his parents went upstairs to see what their son was doing. They opened the bathroom door to see a penguin swimming around in the bathtub! Apparently the boy picked up a little penguin and put him in his backpack and brought him home. And somehow, his parents had missed the whole thing.

What would you say if your child stole a penguin? What would you do? I know one thing for certain: the next time we take our kids to the zoo, we will conduct thorough backpack searches before leaving the premises!