My Favorite Chewbeast

After one particularly grueling day at work I came home to find my home a mess. Papers were scattered around my living room floor and various dog toys were strewn about. It wasn’t until I walked into the kitchen that I saw it. There it was my newly acquired first edition Faust in pieces. Let me paint the picture for a moment. I do enjoy reading and collecting books. Recently I have even taken my hobby a step further and have begun to trade books. I find literature the masses want and trade for something to add to my personal collection. I have a list of books to always keep my eye out for, especially limited editions. When I first saw Faust in the used bookstore I caught my breath, patience has its rewards and was about to reap the benefits ten fold. I had just started to read my mint condition treasure and had only made it fifty pages in when my puppy Stella got a hold of it. She ruined the entire back cover and let her saliva demolish what her teeth had missed. It marked a sad day in the literary community to have such a gem taken from this world in the heat of passion.

This is not the first time, nor do I believe it to be the last, that my favorite dog has laid waste to reading materials. She has even become slyer about it and only chews corners of books now. I shall never fully understand or appreciate the need to chew that my dog battles on a daily basis. Just when you thought her stuffed fox could not look any more disgusting, it does after half an hour of constant chewing. For the first few months in fact she chewed up something new everyday. It was like a reverse lottery, what will she destroy today? No one really won there.

It is after much thought on the matter that I submit this quandary to the universe. Stella is at the house, alone, one random day. The urge to chew strikes. . .then what? I wonder if she has a target already planned to hit that day or if it is randomly selected. Perhaps a book is just teetering off the end table or too low on the bookshelf. Once selected, what is the attack plan? Does she go all in and rip the book in half in one fell swoop? Or does she quietly nose it around the apartment for an hour or so and then give in to her desires? What about afterwards? Now that the book is in pieces, does she pick at the pieces to create an exponentially bigger mess? Or tuck her tail in shame knowing she has done something wrong? Does she cower each time she walks by the pile knowing what is to come or not even give it a second thought until she hears those keys jingling at the door? It is these types of thoughts that make me want to buy a video camera and install it in the house just to see what the little chewbeast is doing. Just for a laugh.

This is what I have to think of when I think of my decimated Faust or else the loss would be too unbearable. Of course I still have the book, but somehow it will never be the same thanks to Stella.