Stuffed Relatives for the Holidays

Stuffed Relatives for the Holidays.                             11/20/11

One warm afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I was sitting outside of my favorite coffee house talking with a friend of mine, when a woman drove up, parked and went into the coffee shop. In the front passenger seat, seat belted in, she had what appeared to be a large brown short haired shepherd type dog wearing a red holiday scarf. As I am sitting there talking with my friend, I looked past him at the car and I noticed that the dog never moved. I didn’t give it much thought at first but then I suspected something maybe very wrong, like maybe the lady had seat belted him into the seat too tight and in that case I might want to intervene on the dog’s behalf. I kept talking to my friend a while longer when I noticed that the dog seemed to be really frozen in place. Then the thought occurred to me that maybe it was not a real dog but just an oversized stuffed child’s toy. As I kept looking at it I found there was something too realistic about the dog which prompted me to go over and investigate. So I walked over to the passenger side window to really get a good look at the creature. And to my surprise it truly was a real dog, or at least it had been one at one time. Yes folks, it had paid a visit to the taxidermist and now it was out joy riding with its owner. I was appalled and amused all at the same time. I went back to my friend, who checked it out for himself, and he agreed, “Yes it looks real, it’s the glass eyes that give me the creeps”. (At this point I want to add we never did determine if it was real or not.)

 I said, can you imagine if we did this with people? And he said, “Well the holidays would be quieter”. We started laughing, imagining what if we had taxidermyed our dead relatives. I said, we could keep them in the attic during the year and only bring them out at Thanksgiving and Christmas. We could set Grandma and Grandpa around the table along with other relatives. It would be like the good old days. Everyone around the table eating and laughing enjoying each other’s company. “Could you pass the mashed potatoes Grandma? Oh your arms not working? Here, let me do it for you”. “Grandpa, would you like more pumpkin pie? Oh, you’re stuffed? No problem, I’ll have your piece”. After we got done laughing at our own humor, the lady came out, got in her car, said a few words to her pet, and drove away. Later that day, I went home, embraced my dog, and said, don’t worry buddy I’ll never stuff you. He just looked at me with his head cocked to the right, wagging his tail, waiting for his cookie. Happy Holidays everyone, pass the stuffing?