Candy Nightmare

With Easter looming, a local veterinary service sent out a notice to remind people, "don't let your pets have chocolate"

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We've never intentionally given any of our pets candy - particularly not chocolate - Easter or otherwise. That said ...We'd once had a candy incident with our first pair of bullies.

We'd had to go run a quick errand and had penned the dogs up like we usually did for such absences. We were gone maybe twenty minutes. This time, however, the female decided to break them out of their pen and go after some "low-hanging fruits". We came home to find both dogs sitting happily on the couch, looking at us like, "you forgot to lock us up - we figured it was cool to sit here on the couch."

Then we found the shredded, empty box that had previously been filled with dark-chocolate truffles. A small distance away, we found the remnants of the bag that had about 1.5lbs of a mixed-assortment of jelly beans. Closish to that, we found the remnants of a bag that had been full of dried apricots. All three had been up on the counters. Amusingly, the bag of bison jerky that had been sitting on the ottoman had been left untouched.

Called the vet to get the opinion on whether to bring the dogs down (had to bring both since neither dog had obvious signs of having consumed the goodies and bother were scampering about happily). Vet said that because they were dark chocolate, we needed to bring them down for ipecac, charcoal and sedatives.

Turns out - after a *very* colorful purge - that only one of the dogs had been bad. Even so, both dogs had to suffer the purge-protocol because there wasn't a good way to ensure that both hadn't partaken without the purge.

Both dogs were unscathed by the experience (purging was less than 45 minutes after food-consumption). I always felt bad for the innocent dog, though.

I Think I'm Going to Be Ill

On the best days, working in an office is a trial. Then, you add in things like Mondays. Toss in horrible personal hygiene of co-workers. Throw in the noise associated with open office plans (i.e., "cube farms"). Take it all together and add in other annoyances and it's really a wonder that "going postal" isn't a daily occurrence.

Now, I like to think I'm fairly tolerant. I may bitch about things (a lot), but, I mostly put up with it. Then again, as a wage-slave, "what are ya gonna do". I also like to think that I'm fairly hard to shock or even surprise. Still, the personal habits of co-workers is always a source of amazement and, all-to-frequently, disgust.

Today is a perfect case in point. After my morning caffeine-infusion, I had to go use the bathroom. Mtn. Dew is great for waking you up, but it runs through you faster than an equivalent volume of beer does. My first trip to the bathroom, I was met with what would (mildly) be called and "unpleasant aroma". However, I was able to at least get in, get my business done, wash up and get out. Unfortunately, the quantity of this morning's Mtn. Dew was such that I needed to hit up the facilities again around an hour later.

This time, the lone urinal was in use. So, I had to resort to the sit-down stalls. I saw feet under the door of the first stall. I figured that accounted for the increase in the lovely aroma. That is, until I got to the other available stall. As I approached and was about to work my fly, I noticed a fecal stalactite hanging from the bowl of the toilet.

Disgusted, I thought to myself, "I'll hit one of the other bathrooms". So, I went upstairs to use that one. Unfortunately, I got there and the smell was even worse than the bathroom on my cube's floor. Again, feet visible under the door of one of the stalls, lone urinal in use. So, again, I sought out the remaining sit-down stall.

Whut-the-fuck: "Shit soup". Whoever'd made that mess couldn't be bothered to flush. Either that, they were in such a panic from what had just come out of them that they'd simply bolted and left it to brew.

So, I headed to the basement to find urinary refuge, there. Fortunately, that was clean. I can only guess that the authors of the prior fecal-crimes had yet to find that particular outlet on their rounds.

Note that I say "authors". As I said on Twitter, "I refuse to believe this morning's restroom atrocities were the work of a single, prolific author. Must have been a foreign foods fest in DC." However, in retrospect, I don't know which prospect is worse: that there's one person responsible for the multiple, heinous acts (and probably still skulking about, readying another "gift") or that more than one person could be that foul. Ugh.