Peanut Butter & The Sploo

It was early one morning in Jamaica Plain. The sun was just coming up over the Arboretum. It was a beautiful day. I had just prepared myself a plain toasted bagel with peanut butter on it. However, I had to scrape the bottom of the container as the JIF was nearly gone. Finally, after minutes of painstaking removal, I had enough peanut butter to slather all over the top of my breakfast bagel.

With my warm bagel on a paper towel in one hand and a glass of cold milk in the other I walked from the kitchen into the back room, which overlooked the Arboretum. Behind me, a rambunctious chocolate lab pranced expectantly.

"This isn't for you, Malcolm."

He jumped up from the floor, eagerly sniffing the air.

Peanut butter! Peanut butter! Peanut butter! Peanut butter! Peanut butter! Peanut butter!

"Malcolm, this isn't for you. Go away!"

I placed my milk on the glass tabletop and began to sit down in the wrought-iron chair. Malcolm leaped once more. His head smacked into the bottom of the hand that was holding the bagel. I watched in silent horror as my peanut butter-laden bagel began to turn end over end as it made its way towards the sky. I was waiting to catch it on its way back down when suddenly, a brown blur appeared from under my field of vision. Like a shark coming up from under a seal-lion his jaws clamped down on my bagel and, in one swift gulping motion, it was gone.

With peanut butter still pasted on the side of his muzzle he sat down and looked at me anxiously: More?

To this day, he drools over peanut butter on warm bread. And, every time I make myself a folded, toasted peanut butter bread I make a little for him, too.

Don't tell anyone.

Happy 11th Birthday, Malcolm.