Cole Comfort.

I think we’ve spent enough time cooing over Quinn being just a teeny bit famous. I think we all need to go back to the original charter of The QC Report; that is, Quinn makes mistakes and we gaze upon her making them.

A few nights ago, I decided that five tablespoons of cole slaw didn’t justify a container the size of a snare drum clogging up the fridge. Having opened the container, I made an executive decision and decided no one in the house was interested in six day-old pickled cabbage and that I was going to dump it out. So far, so logical. Here’s where it takes the turn only I would take.

I hate wasting food.

I didn’t feel like driving around looking for a homeless person who was longing for a side dish, so I gave it to the dog. Because vegetables are good for dogs, right? And she can afford to put on a couple of pounds.

The dog that, while capable of eating the day’s mail, a roll of toilet paper and a twenty dollar bill without incident has a delicate stomach when it comes to actual victuals. By giving her the slightly elderly cabbage salad, I bought myself an endless, night-long, round-trip ticket from the living room to the back door.

Also, thanks to my extremely limited sense of smell, you will have to take Consort’s word for how exciting it is when an old dog eats old cabbage. Apparently, it was like Satan’s Traveling Potpourri.

But, wait! There’s more!

A few weeks ago, I noticed the cat’s back looked less black than brown. Had she been dabbling with Sun-In? Upon closer examination it was determined that Lulabelle was losing a great density of fur from the mid-back to her tail.

To put it in a less-than-ladylike way, Lulabelle was well on her way to a bald ass. At first, I thought it might be an excess of mechanical loving, and I had no idea how to explain that delicately to a veterinary professional. But, as it turns out, Lulabelle had developed an allergy to the moderately high-priced spread she was eating, and needed to move on up to the East Side, to a deluxe apartment in the sky, cat food-wise. I briefly thought about how she had been found as a tiny kitten living under a car, having come from a long line of feral cats who would have considered living under a car to be a fabulous dream. Four years later, she had become yet another living thing in Los Angeles with food allergies. She could start grilling waiters about whether her Chilean Sea Bass had any dairy or wheat products. Or, she could have me for an owner and get expensive stinky wet food.

I don’t like giving wet food to Lulabelle. First of all, it’s only slightly more unpleasant going out than going in. Second of all, Lulabelle is a wet food addict. After two days eating wet food, she tackles you as you walk in the front door and starts rifling through your pockets. A week and she’s mugging little old ladies and panhandling in front of Petco. And here I was, buying her drug of choice in bulk.

The morning before the cabbage, I had started her on wet food. She inhaled her daily portion and then stood for hours like an avenging gargoyle on the washer, screaming at anyone who walked by while looking pointedly at her food bowl.

Here’s how the Night of a Thousand Trips Outdoors went. The dog would get to her feet painfully, and then stand by her precious bed, looking puzzled. Her memory isn’t what it used to be, so by the time she was fully upright, she would have forgotten why she had bothered to stand, only noting dimly that her stomach hurt. Having bounded from the couch at the first collar-jingling I gently herded her towards the back door. By the fifth or sixth trip, I had traded in my herding skills for my collar-tugging skills, all the while crooning supportively, “C’mon, pretty girl. Nothing nicer than the dog run, let’s get there now”. I would get her to the back room, where the addict awaited me.

QUINN: (Gently pushing the dog out the door) Out you...

LULABELLE: WET FOOD!

QUINN: ...go. Lulabelle, hush.

(The dog, distracted by the half-bald screaming shrew , stops in the doorway. I lean against her to push her into the darkness. She falls over.)

LULABELLE: WET FOOD NOW!

(I help the dog to her feet, and note that while she was down on the ground she found a magazine blow-in subscription card to eat. While leaning over to remove it, the cat jumps down, gets between the dog and me, puts her paws on my thighs and gives me a piece of her mind.)

LULABELLE: WET FOOD NOW (OBSCENITY DELETED)!

(I shove the cat away, remove the bit of paper which hasn’t already been digested by the dog, push her into the night and throw the cat off my knee. Lulabelle jumps back onto the washer with the rudely empty bowl, and glowers at me. While waiting for the patient to return, I absentmindedly pet the cat. She licks me until whatever microns of wet food have been removed from my skin. Then, she bites me. The dog staggers back in, heads towards her blanket. With a forlorn sigh and a sulphurous emanation, she goes back to sleep.)

Repeat the above ten times.

I can’t complain, being as I was the one with the genius idea to feed the dog cole slaw. I can’t stand by the decision in retrospect, but I like to think that part of what draws my regular readers back is the nearly unanswerable question “…What moronic thing is Quinn going to do today?” And the nicest part is, I never really learn. Next week, sure, it won’t be cole slaw, but it will be a deli pickle beyond its expiration date, or a slightly cracked hard-boiled egg, or a celery stalk of yogic flexibility. I will decide it’s a sin to waste food, the dog will decide (if decide is something you can do with four brain cells) to eat whatever is placed in front of her maw, and we will both spend the evening living with the consequences.

Consort, being a gentleman, will say nothing approaching “Told ya”. The trash-talking half-bald wet-food addict on the washer probably won’t be so kind.

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