Flashback Friday: Foley and Pocket Crash a State Dinner

 Of all the embarrassing situations my sister has got me into, last weekend was the worst.

 I should have known, given the problems Foley caused when she nipped the kitty and the current administration’s pressuring me to abandon my independent run for Massachusetts Senate since I will not support a universal health care bill that does not include dogs, that we were not invited to a State Dinner.

 But Foley insisted we were. Since she is an administrator of a website, she has been given the codes to travel through the series of tubes, which is the Internet and can pop up anywhere that has an Internet hookup. Because there are many such computers at the White House, she insisted our access to the dinner would be a snap.

 The actual invitation, though, proved to be a problem.

 We went to the Groomer, and Foley told her about the State Dinner, and she laughed and scratched her head and told her she had the best stories. Foley huffed and spent the rest of her grooming in a snit. As for me, I sat very still, let them work their magic, rolled my little brown eyes at Foley’s impatient sighs, and eagerly snapped up her portion of the treats.

 That night, Foley arranged for our Mommy and Daddy to have their special dinner in exchange for free advertisement on her Twitter page, and once they were gone, Foley furiously began to pound her paws on the keyboard. She then barked at me to hop on the laptop. I did, and the next thing I knew, we were being sucked through a series of tubes and popped out in a circular office with a blue rug and a beautiful American flag.

 “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked Foley as we hopped down on the floor.

 “You want to mark the carpet?” Foley said.

 I nodded, and together we sprinkled that blue carpet, and whoever uses that round office, and whoever may use it in the future, needs to know we marked it and it’s ours.

 We went through the door, and Foley told me that we had to run to the front doors so we would go in with the crowd. I wondered why, if we were invited, we needed to go through the line, but Foley, that old girl, is relatively fast, and it was everything I could do to keep up with her.

 We weaved through the people, who were too busy making sure their noses were held appropriately high to notice two little, well-groomed Yorkies, and took our spot at the back of the line. When we reached the front, Foley said: “Foley Monster, accompanied by her sister Pocket Rocket Dog.’

 The man in the suit flipped through the pages and said we were not on the list. Foley stood on her back legs and began to bark that this was discrimination, that the administration was anit-dogies, and what happened to the change we could believe in? Fearing a scene with so many media in line behind us, the man in the suit called in his supervisor, who bent down, smelled us both, stated that we smelled like the rug, and let us in.

 Do you know what we found out are alike? A State Dinner and a doggy park filled with six-month-old male puppies who have not been spade because they both have lots of humps.

 I think Foley and I were the two prettiest Lollipops there because everyone wanted to have their picture taken with us: The Chief of Staff, the Vice-President (who is all hands, my tail got stroked more than it did at the groomers), and even the President himself who said Foley looked familiar, but my sister hurried us away before the jet-lagged President could remember.

 Then they announced it was time for dinner, and I panicked because we did not have place cards. But Foley said our place was under the table where the excellent food always ends—it made sense to me. We crouched under the table and were getting significant bits of fumbled portions. I told Foley the Indian Prime Minister ate like a pig, and she laughed and told me that was ironic, but I didn’t know what none of that meant.

 Everything was going great, and then little Malia came walking in, and she started looking under the table. Foley and I were trying to hide under whatever the Indian guy was wearing when Malia looked under the table and said, “Look, it’s Foley Monster.”

 The President stood up and said, “Foley Monster, we did not invite Foley Monster.” I turned and looked at my sister, and I swear steam was coming out of my little ears. Foley didn’t let the steam bother her. She just grabbed me by the paw and said, “Run.”

 We ran from under the table, and all these big guys, with ties, sunglasses, and radios, began running after us while the President yelled that he couldn’t even put on a State Dinner without getting screwed up. As we ran down a long hall, the men were getting closer, and then we saw Bo, the Presidential dog, at the end of the hallway.

 Bo ushered us into his office and locked the door. (I don’t know why the President’s dog would have an office, but you’ve stuck with me this far, so why start asking questions now?) He wondered how we got there, and Foley told her about the computer codes. Bo asked for them. Foley refused. The evil men were banging on the door. I begged Foley. She told me she didn’t know if she could trust Bo. I nipped her. Bo said he was First Dog, and if he couldn’t be charged, who could? The men said they were going to shoot off the knob. Reluctantly, Foley surrendered the codes, and Bo typed them in; we jumped on the keyboard and were transported just as the evil men came through the door.

 We got home, and Foley put me in my crate and lay in her blanket just as Mommy and Daddy came home. We had to act like we had been sleeping all night and jump and bark when exhausted. Luckily, we thought we had got away with our adventure.

 Until the following day when the newspaper arrived, and on the front page was a story about the couple who crashed the White House dinner with a picture of us with that grabby Vice-President.

 Well, Mommy and Daddy were unhappy, and Foley has been banned from the computer until further notice, which is why I am telling you this.

 Foley is on her blanket. She ordered her Blackberry, so she’ll be back online soon. She always has a way to find her way back online and into trouble.

 Some good did come from our escapades. Bo is now traveling around the world. While humans in different countries continue to fight, dogs live to love and to all be part of the same pack, and since we have such control over our owners, this may be the best chance of ever having peace on earth for the holidays.

 And you can bet Foley and I will be traveling again. So if you feel little paws under the table or a little warmth in your bed at night, just drop a bit of food or enjoy the snuggle because it’s just Foley and Pocket having traveled through the series of tubes to your house.