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My boss and I walk in the afternoon. Our office is very relaxed and "untucked," so these walks serve as meetings where we discuss the events of the day or week. It beats the crap out of meeting around a table in a conference room with our shirts tucked in, talking about thinking "outside the box." Last week, his wife called in the middle of preparing for a small Passover gathering. Of course, I could only hear his side of the conversation and her rather animated voice coming through the phone.
"What do you mean where was it?"
"On the stove."
"No I didn't eat it."
"All of it?!?!"
"How much of it did he eat?" Half? A quarter?"
"He's never done that before."
"What about the other brisket?"
"Frozen? In the freezer?"
"Can you cut off the teeth marks? Just the part he ate from."
"Well, he had it in his mouth!"
Apparently Wilson, the dog, ate part of the brisket for Passover. As dogs lack the ability and sense to clean up after themselves, he left it laying in the middle of the kitchen floor.
A few minutes later, the wife called back.
"We'll just cut off the bad part."
"Are you crying?"
"Ok, I'll be home early. Five o'clock. Ok, four-thi-- yes, four o'clock."
Just as he hung up, his daughter called from out of town. She was supposed to surprise everyone by coming to dinner.
"Oh, that's too bad. No, I'm not mad."
"It's fine. No, I'm just a little disappointed that we won't to see you. But we'll see you next week, I guess."
"Yes, everyone will be disappointed, but I understand."
He hung up and said to me, "Alice isn't coming to dinner."
...
...
"And it's a damn good thing, there wouldn't be enough brisket for her anyway."
I didn't feel it was my place to state the obvious.
At 4:15, I got a call from the boss.
"The bad news is that he did eat about half of the brisket. But Alice isn't coming, and it turns out that of the remaining 7 people, one is a vegetarian. Tonight would be a good night to be a vegetarian. Otherwise you'll be eating after a dog. So, the good news is that there will be enough brisket."
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