Cheeto Trundles

CRUNCH SMACK SLURP BURPWIGGLE MUNCH
CRUNCH SMACK SLURP BURPWIGGLE MUNCH

It wasn’t until I took the rubbish out that I noticed the box on the doorstep. It was addressed to Odd Trundles, and my first thought was that he’d stolen someone’s credit card by deploying maximum cuteness and somehow learned to navigate the wilds of online shopping to boot.

When I opened the package–I did not make him chew it open, thank goodness–I found two bags of Cheetos and a note. Now I was thinking the dog had another owner on the side. Perhaps he was bilocating, and his “naps” were really a shedding of his physical coil to let his spirit cavort with another family.

The note was from Miss Dina. And now I remembered, during a Google Hangout for a friend’s birthday, it was Dina who had said the word “Cheetos.” This was relatively late in the evening, and Odd Trundles perked up.

He knows that word. Boy howdy, does he ever.

Each time she mentioned the crunchy orange crack of discord, he would snap to attention and quiver. He almost fell asleep sitting up, but each C-word jolted him awake. Eventually I think we started spelling the word out, like one does with a toddler, but poor Odd looked miserably crushed. (I say eventually and I think because I was neck-deep in a bottle of cider and my memory may not be all it should or could be.)

The note in the box was from Miss Dina, apologizing sweetly to Trundles for causing him any distress. And I, of course, opened one bag…

…and scattered the entire contents on the kitchen floor.

Want to know what doggy heaven looks like? It’s paved with crunchy orange nuggets, apparently. Trundles and Miss B did everything but roll in the snowdrift of processed corn and salty cheese substitute. I didn’t get a single Cheeto, and will measure out the remaining bag in smaller doses to the dogs over the next, oh, month or so. Which is a measure of my abiding love for them, let me tell you. Odd was taken outside to relieve any crunch-orgy related pressure, and when he came back in, he went straight to his crate in my bedroom and passed out, though I was not going to bed anytime soon. I guess he figured his day was never going to be better than those fifteen minutes, so he was Done.

I knew I would regret it, when 3am rolled around and Odd’s digestive tract expelled the gaseous byproduct of metabolizing the cheese powder. The regret was outweighed by the sheer canine joy, and the pain in my stomach muscles from laughing so hard. I am still a little tender in the gut this morning, and I suspect Trundles is too. He is still letting out long mellow cornet-blasts from each end as I type this. Miss B, being daintier but no less enthusiastic, did not swallow nearly as much air, and is only moderately stenchful. Small mercies.

On the bright side, my kitchen floor has never been cleaner. It damn near sparkles in there.