I’ve been sick this week, not from eating dog, though that would be a nice example of cause-and-effect. Suffice it to say that my brain has been one gig short of a gigabyte.
Still, I decided to do some grading. My Grade 8 students are near the end of a humour unit. Their penultimate assignment was to write a either a rant (loosely modeled on Knox McCoy’s Things That Piss Me Off: Abusers of the Migraine Label) or a Top 10-ish list (loosely based on Clay Morgan’s 16 Reasons To Love or Leave Canada).
Two nights ago, I was reading some of the titles of the top ten assignments to my husband. The ones I listed off included the following:
- Top 8 Things Overheard in a Boys’ Bathroom
- 10 Sports That Shouldn’t Be Sports
- Top 4 Things I Should Never Do Again
- Top 5 Things You Should Never Do Before a Class Picture
- Top 8 Scenarios the Athletic Butt Slap Is Not Appropriate
- Top 7 Reasons We Should Get Rid of Country Music
I was doing a nice laugh/cough combo. Imagine a tubercular audience member wheezing her way through a Russell Peters set; now imagine something not-so-extreme.
“Listen to this one,” I said.
My husband looked up from his book on the Gulag.
“These kids are hilarious,” I added as I swallowed a piece of phlegm the size of a brick.
He put his book down and wandered over.
“Top Eight Reasons Not To Eat a Dog,” I read.
He grabbed the paper from me.
“That’s not what it says,” he countered.
“It’s not?”
“No. It says Top Eight Reasons Not To Get a Dog.”
He dropped the paper onto the table and wandered back to the living room with his book.
“Oh,” I coughed. “But dog would taste pretty good if you were in a death camp, wouldn’t it?”
I heard only a sigh. Then I went back to my own torture grading.
I invite you to embrace my misreading:
what are some reasons why we should not eat dog?
Or, for those not wanting to write fiction, what’s the weirdest thing you’ve eaten?
You are too funny!
Funny-as-in-crazy, mostly.
One reason I will not be eating dog is that I live in Maricopa county, home to America’s (self-proclaimed) “toughest sherriff,” Joe Arpaio. Said tough guy has a soft spot for dogs, and as such will bust you hard if you so much look at a dog wrong. Not sure how feels about the consumption of long pork though (I’m guessing there’s a good reason that some prisoners have turned up missing, and all the bologna–and hot dogs–at his “Tent City” are green).
Not that I’ve ever eaten long port, mind you. I have, however, eaten balls. Bull’s balls to be exact. They were foisted upon me when I was 15, and actually thought “Rocky Mountain Oysters” were merely oysters of the farm-raised variety. Well, nuts to me, I guess! 😉 I wasn’t happy with my mom for playing that gag on me.
You crack me up. I haven’t tried prairie oysters (or the Rocky Mountain variety). Not yet anyway.
Thank-you, ma’am! Hoping to crack some of your readers up this week as well. 🙂
FTR, I don’t recommend those oysters, they’re kinda salty.
” I wasn’t happy with my mom for playing that gag on me.”
Great pun!
Thanks, Ricky! I have my moments.
Truthfully, my approach to humor is informed in a manner akin to Stephen King’s approach to horror writing:
“I recognize terror as the finest emotion; as such, I will try to terrify. If I find I can’t terrify, I’ll horrify. If I can’t horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out.” So, yeah, I’ll go for the laugh where I can. This has caused me no end of trouble with my wife.
I ate durian in Indonesia. If you’re not familiar with durian, it looks like this: http://tropical-fruits.biz/ . It was so wretched that it started coming back up before I had it all the way down. Meanwhile the guy running the durian stand is waving another hunk under my nose. The guy I was with kept patting my shoulder and saying “I don’t think she wants anymore. I don’t think she wants anymore.” It tastes like a weird combo of rotten onions and vomit.
Guests at the hotel we stayed in are forbidden to bring durian into their rooms. That’s how awful it smells. It truly smells like a decomposing corpse.
If you’re ever in Indonesia, be sure to try this local delicacy. I promise you’ll never forget it.
Durian! Good one. I lived in Thailand, where the stench of them would overtake the produce section of the supermarket. It’s amazing some people love them.
I think the weirdest thing I’ve eaten is a mushroom.
I mean it’s a fungus.
Who decided that was a brilliant idea?
Ok, I admit I even enjoyed it once.
Yes, I’m an insanely picky eater, but you knew that.
I was so busy trying to read what the kid wrote and scratching my head for the eating part, I completely skimmed over the real title until your husband corrected you.
I also know this evil laugh/cough combo.
I just did it while reading this post.
Here’s hoping you get your gigabyte back soon. (Hugs)
Mushrooms: well, some can kill you so you may be on to something. And then there’s cheese. I love me some mold.
I once licked a scab for .50 cents. Not my scab. I’ve also eaten crow plenty of times.
And thus have you sealed your status as a god among men.
I love how you say “Not my scab” like that makes it all better.
Yes, my readers say it best.
Actually, I think that made it worse. Just my opinion.
We should not eat dog because then we would have Dog Breath and that’s the worst!
Haha! And we’d pant and drool and look like 7yo twins.
I once swallowed a piece of phlegm the size of a brick.
Wait, was that plagiarism? 😉
No, I think that was an homage.
I hope you are feeling better.
#Don’tBeA gooey tissue stuck between the cushions, IYKWIM.
That’s not ooey gooey goodness, is it!
Zebra…okay, I said it. I didn’t want to eat it, and I wouldn’t have taken the bite had I known, but no one told me. Obviously the slowest one at the watering hole, but I still feel bad.
This just made me remember when my husband and I were in South Africa. We were driving through Krueger Park and snacking on kudu jerky. Then we saw a herd of kudu. We felt really guilty.
Zebra and kudu. Well, at least I’ve heard of kudu.
I wouldn’t eat a dog because I wouldn’t want a dog to eat me…. 😉
Good point. 🙂
For me, [I don’t eat dog because] it’s a texture thing. They’re a little ruff.
Ba-da-DUM!
Pun of the day!
As a Canadian I don’t eat dog because if I did then who would pull my dogsled from my home igloo to my work igloo and back all year long?
That’s true, Larry.
Ha! Funny stuff.
I don’t eat dog because I’d never be able to look into their little puppy dog eyes again.
Those eyes!
(T decides not to answer and continues making chihuahua canapes.) ;}
Wise move…
You gotta watch that T. 😉
Last night a chihuahua brought in by a visitor vomited the chocolate it had sneakily scoffed all over our cream-grey lounge carpet. Dog canapes? Hey – I was tempted! 🙂
Own goal of sorts, the nosey beast got where it shouldn’t have got. And – seriously – anybody got a good tip for getting rid of a chocolate dog puke stain? (My geek specialty is physics, not chemistry…).
Matthew Wright
http://mjwrightnz.wordpress.com
http://www.matthewwright.net
In Korea, they eat dog but I did my best to stay out of those places. I have tried alligator, kangaroo and python though. All nasty!
My own Thing 1 has answered, “Because Mom says we aren’t allowed to get up from the table while we’re eating and we would have to get up to catch the dog and then eat it and then it would be bedtime before we catch it.” There was a lot more, but that’s pretty much when I stopped listening for laughing. Because, um, obviously in my house you have to catch your meals? This is how I know I’m not exaggerating when I tell people it’s Lord of the Flies in here some days.
I think the biggest reason not to eat a dog is because they’re not tasty. We talk about this a lot in my house for some reason, how Jack will be the last in the stew pot because he’s runty and wiggly, while Casey will be the first because she’s quite sausage-like and sedate. But ah, what book on the Gulag was he reading, cause I’m kind of a little too into it. Has he read Thomas Sgovio’s Dear America? It’s hard to get & I’d be happy to loan it out if you want.
Hilarious, sitcom-worthy slice of your domestic life. Leanne!