Dietary Indiscretions

I really don't know what got into me last Saturday. By this I'm referring to my "dietary indiscretion". How's that for a term? This is a phrase I learned from our veterinarian. A while ago we had a cute little mutt, who was fond of eating nearly everything she came across from tennis balls to the neighbors garbage. You will probably not be too surprised to learn that she is no longer with us.

I remember our first vet visit: our vet, in all solemnity gave his diagnosis of our dog's problem - the dreaded "dietary indiscretion." I nearly fell off my chair laughing. How can a dog ever be discreet about their food choices anyway? But, seriously, it's often a life-or-death matter for animals, who often don't have enough sense to know what's good for them. A little like human beings.

Thinking about Hamburgers, that reminds me of something that happened the last time our family traveled to England. Here we were, stopped at a local pub for lunch. Being the Americans that we are, we ordered the safest thing we could find on the pub menu. Not bangers or toad-in-the-hole, but real hamburgers for our table. While we were waiting in starving anticipation, we noticed something odd, two cats had come over and were under our table circling our legs. Oh fun! The children were not used to seeing pets in restaurants, so they had great fun with the animals while we waited. Finally the hamburgers arrived. We bit into them with gusto. Ugh. They tasted nothing like McDonalds. We were embarrassed to leave our plates untouched so we came up with a plan: feed the hamburgers to the cats! We tried and tried but the cats were actually scared when confronted by the bits of hamburger we dropped beneath the table. Scared by cooked hamburger! They sniffed it and gave us the cold shoulder. I wonder what was in that meat that even a cat (who will bite off a mouses head given the opportunity) wouldn't touch? Scary thought. It was probably in Saturdays whopper sandwich that I so indiscreetly bolted down. Ugh.