General Tso's Chicken and Uncle Tom's Slippery Fingers

On Friday our Uncle Tom (that is his real name, I am not here to protect his innocence) and our Aunt Charlotte came for their monthly sit around and talk too loudly for Pocket and I to get any pre sleep sleep, gathering.  Sometimes they bring pizza but this time they brought Chinese food.

I am not a big proponent of Chinese food.  All that rice, chippy bones, meat on sticks, and fried food do not make for great table scraps.  Honestly, I don’t know why humans do this, I think the way they batter and fry is a terrible thing to do to a perfectly good chicken.

But on this Friday something miraculous happened that I didn’t see coming.  While the humans were talking about things that no dog would ever find interesting (and they complain about our barking) Uncle Tom was putting a piece of what is called General Tso’s chicken onto his plate when it fell onto the floor.

I am 12, and old, but when there is a piece of chicken on the floor I am faster than the wind, which Uncle Tom can attest to, because before he could bend down I was on that chicken and had it in my mouth.   I was lucky it was boneless because that would have created quite a ruckus.  As it was all the humans peered under the table.

Daddy began to slide down under the table to take the chicken away from me but I put up a paw and signaled to him that I had this.  I am missing a couple of teeth, and the remaining ones don’t work as well as they used to, but there was no way I was letting this little bit of chicken from heaven get away from me.

I must admit it was very spicy.  My tongue began to burn and my lips felt like they were on fire.  I had never tasted anything quite like it before.  It also took up my entire mouth so I had to chew and swallow from the side of my mouth while keeping the bigger part firmly between my tongue and the top of my mouth.

Occasionally my tongue would sag, and I would gag a little, and everyone would reach for me, but I got the giant piece of chicken under control and worked on it some more.  I felt it slide down my gullet like a firery bird.  Occasionally I would make the gagging sound just to watch the humans react.

It took me more than a minute but I finally finished it.  Let me tell you, that China Man makes a mean bird.  (Note:  Pocket tells me that I the term China Man is offensive.  Well, he’s from China, he’s a man, and he made a bird, so if someone can tell me what’s wrong with that sentence I will send you a big poop on your award.)

Speaking of poop, which most of my blogs do, General Tso, much like President Bush,  must have been a general who was great at invading cities but never knew when to pull out and move on because while the piece went down easy it didn’t quite come out that way.

I had the rumbling tummy for the rest of the night, and then on Saturday, I sent a world record having five perfectly formed bowel movements in one day.  (The overeating was not helped by Daddy allowing Pocket and I to share a fortune cookie.  Our cookie read “Pocket sleep down wind of Foley.”)   I had to concentrate very hard to make them perfectly formed but I knew if I had messy poo I would never eat chicken in this town again.

Of course, a half hour after eating General Tso’s chicken I was hungry again.

Can’t wait until the next time Uncle Tom with the slippery fingers comes over again and drops something else tasty.  I want him to know the door is always open to him.  It has to be.  You can’t turn a knob with slippery fingers.