The Chew Of Invulnerability

In our house merely opening the cupboard that holds all the dog food causes a stampede. Wherever they are – regardless of whether they’re apparently fast asleep, raiding my sock drawer or tearing up newly delivered mail – they come running to see what nice thing they’re about to get. If that nice thing is a chew, then there’s another stampede as soon as they get it, because as everyone knows you can’t eat a chew just anywhere.

By far the favorite chew consumption area is a corridor by our bedroom. I guess they like it because it’s a safe secluded place. Biggles prefers to be right down at the farthest end, behind Beanie, but that causes problems because when he finishes his chew first, he’s trapped. The only way out of the corridor is past Beanie, and he’s not at all keen about passing close to her when she’s eating a chew. Being Biggles, he’s not content to just wait patiently for the two minutes it’ll take her to finish, so he woofs loudly to request an escort. To get peace, either Susan or myself has to literally provide him with a human shield so that he can pass safely through the Beanie danger zone.

As a workaround I recently tried handing Beanie her chew first, then motioning Biggles into the lounge and delivering his chew in there. My thinking behind this was: 1) he might just eat the chew in the lounge, and in any case 2) Beanie has by this time already taken up residence in the corridor, effectively blocking it. Either way, the problem is solved right? Wrong. Biggles scampered round the lounge frantically trying different candidate chew eating locations. Clearly none of them were any good because he then shot past me out of the lounge and straight down to the end of the corridor, passing a happily munching Beanie on the way! There he was finally able to consume his treat. And of course he still finished it first, found himself trapped at the dead end of the corridor and woofed loudly for an escort. Again.

Thanks to my experience with Dungeons & Dragons style fantasy games I immediately understood what had transpired. Clearly Biggles’ chew had been a magical item, temporarily rendering its holder immune to tellings-off from one’s sister. That’s right, Biggles had found the legendary Chew Of Invulnerability [single use]. With the chew in his mouth he’d been able to march past Beanie safely, but once it had gone he’d had no choice but to call for assistance.

Behold the magical Chew of Invulnerability. Note that once the chew has been consumed its protection expires and the user is once again at risk of severe grumpage, albeit with a slightly a fuller tummy

The crazy thing about all this is that Beanie has never actually grumped at Biggles for passing close by her while she’s eating; she’s oblivious to most things when something edible is actually between her jaws. In fact our two are getting on particularly well at the moment. There haven’t been any fall-outs in the house and outside play has been great, with much chasing and even a high-speed variant of hide-and-seek where each of them dives behind bushes and hillocks to throw the other off the trail.

I guess it doesn’t have to make any sense. It’s just one of those little Bigglisms that makes living with our two monkeys so.. interesting..