Tuna has taken on important aspects in the leftystrat household; affecting both the bipeds and the quadrupeds.
One of the tasty ways to cut down on red meat is with fish. We're all getting into tuna in both forms: canned and filets. Filets are great because you can spice the hell out of them and cook them in a non-stick pan with no added fat. And yes, it tastes great.
The serious furor in the household, however, surrounds tuna of the canned variety. This is used for all sorts of things, like tuna salad (no, really?). Another main use is to put it on salad to make it more interesting. And let's face it - there's little one can do to make salad less interesting.
And when I say salad, I mean salad as [insert deity] intended it: mainly iceburg lettuce that comes from a bag. By all means, add in some high-calorie, high-fat dressing while you're at it. My wife prefers this horrible-tasting, very pretty salad (arrest that woman for attempted salad!), which I refer to as looking like someone mugged a flower garden.
So thus far we have learned that both salad and tuna come from the same place: the grocery store.
But wait - there's more! For reasons I probably prefer not to remember, we drain the water from the tuna and put it in the cat's bowl with some dry food. He eats it in less time than it took to pour into the bowl.
The dog, however, is loath to miss out on anything his sibling gets. He still wishes he was an only child. As soon as he discovered tuna water, he went insane. Yes, some would say the disorder preceeded the water but let's not quibble, ok? Marshall's favorite thing in the world is cat food. In fact, he was given an American Indian name when he was little (Smells Like Cat Food). The theory here is that tuna smells like cat food, so that's why he's ok with it. Now we pour it over his food too.
This is all well and good but you have no idea what it's like around the old homestead involving the simple but important device known to all as the can opener. Animals don't do too well with the abstract so they have no idea that when they hear the can opener, it could be opening something that is not tuna. As soon as the familiar noise starts, both of them fly into the kitchen, in record time, to stand around the magic can opener, as someone is obviously opening some tuna for them.
The cat is quietly annoying, rubbing against me, trying to trip me, and ramming his nineteen pounds repeatedly into my leg, as if I'm going to forget him or something. The dog it attempting to sit quietly and failing miserably. He's so excited that his little stub of a tail is vibrating and he appears to actually be sitting above the floor, having levitated himself an inch or so. He also makes little excited noises, which is greatly preferrable to ramming his forty pounds into my leg.
At this point there is simply no way to explain to the non-human speakers that this might not be tuna. Or cat food. Or even that rad cranberry sauce with the lines around it. So they get tuna water. Sometimes I have to open two cans. Happier pets you have never seen.
Last night it was salad, naturally with tuna. They did their little dance, got some tuna water and remained completely attentive for about an hour after. Perhaps they were working on perfecting Tuna Telekinesis, whereby the tuna on my salad lifted itself up and flew into their mouths. You simply never know with non-human speakers.
Half a can of tuna remained. Looking at it in retrospect, this was my big mistake (there's that foreshadowing thingy again!).
Tonight I decided to make use of the remaining tuna. Naturally it was nowhere to be found. This is because of the unique combination of my innate inability to locate anything and my wife's innate ability to never put things in the same place twice. So I broke down and asked if she had seen the errant tuna.
I knew I wasn't going to like the answer when she told me, "You're not going to like the answer."
It turns out that even before anyone had a chance to stow the spare tuna, the somewhat furrier of the house's occupants decided they had better uses for it. I am led to believe that it took the form of what can only be referred to as Tuna Hockey.
The cat was up on the counter, nose-deep in tuna. When my wife yelled and reached, he passed to the floor and the dog, who quickly and efficiently nosed the tuna tin across the floor while simultaneously emptying it of what he must see as Cat Food of the Gods. By the time my wife caught him, the can was totally devoid of tuna. Over in the corner sat two happy pets, busily licking their lips and paws.
Ha ha.
Screw me - I had to open more tuna for my dinner. Which pretty much set the whole game into play a second time.
NEWS FROM THE TWILIGHT ZONE
The place in which I toil tends to make bad decisions. In fact, if they could get paid for bad decisions, they'd be the most successful non-profit in history.
One of our extremely bad decisions was around copier/printers. The hardware to which I refer shall not be mentioned by name (but rhymes with Dannon). Combine slimy salesmen, clueless techs, and bad hardware and there we were.
Being one of the people who had to work with both the salesmen and my own people, I was in a good position to see how the machines worked out. And by worked out, I mean didn't work.
I made my frustrations known up the line, figuring the people who make the decisions might benefit from some input. By that time it didn't come as a surprise when I discovered we had signed a six year contract for these bloody machines.
We suffered through the entire contract. Email went around every day about which units not to use because they were broken. The copier technicians must feel the same way Windows technicians feel (they always have a job).
I know I shouldn't have been surprised last week when a whole slate of new machines showed up without notice. It definitely didn't surprise anyone when the delivery folks didn't have the printer drivers and didn't know how to operate the machinery.
And no one said a thing when it was discovered we signed a new six-year contract.
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