About That Time My Dog’s Life Was In Danger

Oh, it’s all good now, thank goodness, but things were a little bit dicey earlier this week. Let me explain.

On Sunday, Jim and I drove the boys back to Wisconsin and to their respective colleges. While we were gone, my mom called the house and left a voicemail. Apparently she and my dad had left a bag at our house before leaving town. The bag, she said, contained the games they brought along with a “cap”. I heard the message when we returned home and didn’t think much about it other than, “We’ll get that bag to them on our next visit,” like she requested. We were exhausted from a long day in the car and watched a couple of shows on Netflix before heading up to bed.

On Monday, I was doing my best to get caught up with work after the holiday weekend, a task made much more difficult because for some reason, Roxie was having a needy day. She was staring at me, for one thing, which is step one. She carefully picks her spot on the next couch cushion over from me and does not take her eyes off of my face. If she truly had laser beam eyes as my sister often says, my face would have been burned off in the first five minutes. After a lack of response from me, she took to rolling around on the carpet in front of me, occasionally stopping on her back and coyly glancing my way as if to will me onto the floor to play with her. No dice there, either.

Then she went upstairs. I HATE THAT because I can hear her nails clicking on the hardwood floors as she walks from room to room, sometimes breaking out into a run (or at least a jog), and usually she is pulling something out of somebody’s trash can just to be annoying. It’s always at that point when I get up from my couch office and head upstairs to scold her and drag her back downstairs. If I can get her settled on the couch for a while, I’m lucky. Monday, I couldn’t. She was obviously full of energy and it probably would have benefited both of us greatly if I had suited up and taken her for a thirty minute walk around the neighborhood but I didn’t want to take the time.

Eventually I went upstairs to get some lunch, and that’s when I saw it, the “cap” my mom mentioned.

It was a “night cap”, sent to my sister from Maker’s Mark. My sister, you see, is a Maker’s Mark Ambassador. Not in the Blogging Ambassador sense, mind you: Maker’s Mark has a great program for its fans through which they can sign up to spread the good word about Maker’s Mark just by enjoyment of it. Julesie visited their distillery once and even got to dip her own bottle into the red wax that beautifully seals all of their Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey products. (She picked up a jar of Maker’s Mark cherries for me on that trip, and I cannot rave about them enough. Anyway…) As an Ambassador she received a certificate which, as I recall, stated that her name was associated with one of their barrels, and last year (or the year before?) she was sent some awesome holiday gift boxes.

So that night cap. It was this year’s holiday gift, and it arrived at my house last week because she used to live with us and hasn’t given them her new address yet. The cap was adorable. It wasn’t for a person; it was for a whiskey bottle. It was made of red flannel fabric and had an adorable while pom pom on top. It was apparently in the bag of games that my mom and dad left…on the floor in the living room. Notice how I’m writing about it in past tense.

I found the cap in the middle of our new living room rug–“Roxie’s Rug”–and although the flannel was intact it was a little…wet. The white pom pom was spread out all over the rug, little tufts of cotton that had been delicately pulled from the anchor at the top of the hat.

Here’s a picture of what was left.

Night Cap

I sucked in my breath when I realized what happened, and I may have shouted out a few expletives. Maybe.

Then I stared yelling at the dog, things like, “She’s going to kill you! She’s going to kill us! OMG!!!” (Okay, not really OMG. Something else.)

Roxie was not impressed, or affected, to say the least. Shocker.

I had to see if I could get the cap replaced so I could soften the blow when I told my sister what happened, so I took to Facebook and sent a message to Maker’s Mark:

Maker's Mark message

By Tuesday I had no answer, and before I could send a follow-up I received an email from Julesie saying that she would pick up her Maker’s Mark cap in a few days. I had to tell her what happened, so I emailed her back and then left a message on the public Maker’s Mark Facebook wall, asking them to check their inbox. Julesie wrote back and said that she had someone she could email directly, and that’s what she did. A few minutes later I received a response that made me jump for joy, and I know that Roxie would have as well if she truly understood human-speak. Or cared about solutions to problems she causes.

Maker's Mark

All I can say is, THANK YOU, PEOPLE OF MAKER’S MARK. I want to kiss you all on the mouth. And so does Roxie, but that’s normal for her and has nothing to do with the circumstances.

Who, me?

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