Monday I had one of those days. You know the kind. The kind
where you leave your grocery list and coupons home on the counter when you had
hoped this trip to the store would be your last until after Christmas. I also
took off without my cell phone. I didn’t figure that one
out until I was writing a check for my groceries and I noticed the piece of red card-stock sticking out of my purse pocket with the words PUT CELL IN PURSE written on it with a magic marker. I could almost
hear my mother saying, “You’d forget your head if it wasn’t attached!” How I ever
got the reputation for being a detail person is beyond me. Actually, I do
understand and I do deserve that reputation. But I’m also known for being a one-track
person and when I left for the store my one-track was on a different road.
At the store I came upon something I’d never seen before---a
beautiful layered tiramisu cake all boxed up for gift-giving, an import from
Italy. I love tiramisu cakes and Italy but I couldn’t read 99% of the words on
the box or find an expiration date. Even so that box was in and out of my cart a
bunch of times before the you’re-on-a-diet side of the debate going on in my head
won over the you-deserve-a-Christmas-gift side. Still, I couldn’t
get tiramisu out my thoughts so when I got to the bakery section I couldn’t help
buying a single square of American style tiramisu. (Punishment for my indiscretion
would come later.) When the young clerk handed me the box he'd put the two inch square of cake in, I almost asked him
to tape the lid shut---they usually do---but I didn’t want to sound like a fussy old
woman. Big mistake.
When I got home I took two cloth grocery bags in the house and sat them on
the kitchen floor then went back to the garage to get some more. When I came
back in, the dog had popped the top off the tiramisu and was eating the chocolate layer and then some off the top of cake square. The top that is dusted in
cocoa powder. Most people know that chocolate is toxic to dogs, the darker the
chocolate the more toxic it is and cocoa powder is right up there at the top of
the list. Coffee isn’t good for dogs either which tiramisu also has in its layers.
I hopped on the internet and found a site that scared the heck out of me. Levi
was going to suffer diarrhea, vomiting, low blood pressure, rapid breathing and
seizures before his muscles got rigid and his heart failed. The site also said
that once the symptoms start it was almost too late for treatment.
I called his veterinary, prepared to rush Levi down to get his
stomach pumped and force it full of charcoal to absorb any left-over toxicity.
The vet wanted to call me back after he did some calculations that involved
Levi’s weight vs. how much tiramisu he had consumed. They have an app for that. Who knew. And who would have ever guessed math would play such a critic role in
my day? When the vet called back he said he was quite sure Levi would be okay
but if Levi started showing any symptoms over the next six hours I
was to rush him down to the Animal Emergency Hospital. Yes, we have one of
those in town and it’s very much like an ER for people. Sad, tense, even crying people are in the
waiting area and you wait forever while your pet is surrounded by specialty
veterinaries prepared 24/7 to do anything from pull a thorn out of a paw to open heart
surgery. Like any other hospital, though, the less critical patients wait while they take the more serious cases first. And you’d better have a credit card with you because you have to hand
it over before your pet even gets rushed back for treatment. I don't know what happens if you don't have one and I hope I never find out.
After I got off the phone, Levi was acting like a brat,
begging for treats that I didn’t give him. If
he was going to upchuck, I thought, best
not to have too much in his stomach. Do you know how hard it is to watch a
dog for six hours? All kinds of thoughts ran through your mind. What would I do
without him in my life? How could I have set that grocery bag on the floor? Why
didn’t I act on the impulse to ask the guy at the bakery counter to tape the
box shut? In the meantime, Levi ran around barking at squirrels and birds while
I followed closely behind making sure he didn’t park any barf in the corners of the rooms.
Perfectly normal---well, not the following part but you probably knew that. Then he took a
nap. Perfectly normal even if I did keep annoying him by taking his pulse every time he twitched in his sleep. Finally, the six hours ticked by and Levi didn't show any symptoms that he would die by chocolate. To celebrate I ate the
rest of the tiramisu. But I did not enjoy it...and I'm not sure I ever will again. What a waste of calories, a half a day and $2.99. Crimes against your diet plan just aren’t worth it! ©
