Besides My Cooking, Another Reason You Might Not Want to Come to My House for Dinner

Wonderbutt and Squeaky Toy share a rare moment of silence.

I am sure that it is not just chance that the only toy that has ever stood up to the jaws of our bulldog, Wonderbutt, also happens to be the most annoying toy on the face of this planet.

My daughter and husband have plotted to make Squeaky Toy disappear.  Permanently.  So far, I’ve held them back.  Wonderbutt is just so darn happy when he plays with it, and it’s not very often we get to see the pudgy little guy actually smile.  (I told my husband the other day that we should have named him Bob Newhart.)  See, look how gleeful he is when he plays with it?

Oh, right.  I forgot.  I have no pictures of him playing with it.  As soon as I pull the camera out, Wonderbutt, races to me so he can shove Squeaky Toy in my face.  There is nothing quite as enjoyable as having a stinky plush toy smashed into your nose.

The main problem with Squeaky Toy is that Wonderbutt refuses to allow me to schedule the playdates.  Instead, Wonderbutt chooses the time and place that Squeaky Toy is invited to make an appearance – and those times are not what the rest of us would call ideal.

Yesterday, our elderly friend, MILlie, came for dinner.  To keep Wonderbutt from leaping on her, I tried to distract him with Squeaky Toy.  Wonderbutt sat next to MILlie, and stared at me like I was insane as I danced around squeezing Squeaky Toy enticingly.  He finally sighed, and returned to the more pressing job of figuring out how to hump our guest.

An hour later, we sat down to dinner.  Five minutes after we started to eat our spaghetti, Wonderbutt came racing into the room, merrily chomping down on Squeaky Toy.  He pranced around the dining room table, and dashed through the curtains behind us, back and forth, now completely devoted to playing with Squeaky Toy, his long lost friend who had been annoyingly silent for entirely too long.

Short squeaky bursts, and long high-pitched wails emitted from the toy as Wonderbutt eyed us  peripherally for our reactions.  Then, he walked too close to my husband’s chair.  Squeaky Toy hit a leg of the chair, and popped out of Wonderbutt’s mouth.  With quick reflexes, Cap’n Firepants kicked Squeaky Toy under a low side table.

Wonderbutt tries to figure out how to rescue Squeaky Toy.

Blessed silence.

Until –

Wonderbutt realized that his attempts to remove Squeaky Toy from the table dungeon were only making things worse.  So, Wonderbutt began to whine.

Which is worse – the joyous, ear-splitting shrieks of a Squeaky Toy being chomped on by a happy bulldog, or the less-deafening but amazingly depressing sound of a canine parted from his very best friend in the whole wide world?

We pulled out Squeaky Toy.