The Great Egg Thief

• Well, before Mikalye and Cadet graced us with their presence, Duke pretty much ran the roost. Being an only "child", he was definitely spoiled beyond all means. Well, one time Michelle, Duke and myself went on vacation for a while and when we returned we decided to do a little spring cleaning. Starting with the refrigerator, we cleaned out some of the food that had been in there since before the vacation. Among the things that were cleaned out, half a carton of eggs were among the items. Filling up a garbage bag full of trash, it was placed in the back yard to be taken to the dumpster with the other trash from the spring-cleaning. At this point in Duke's life, he had grown very good at opening doors. Screen doors, bedroom doors, anything that he could figure out, he would master the art of this. Well, while Michelle and I were cleaning the rest of the house, we failed to keep a sharp eye on Duke. A little while after placing the garbage bag in the back yard, I looked up and noticed that Duke was nowhere to be seen. After looking around the house and calling his name, Michelle and I went into the back yard, knowing that he has figured out how to open the screen door. After taking a look around the yard and seeing the array of trash that was scattered about, something just happen to catch my eye. It was an egg carton, but it was empty, where 20 minutes earlier there had been five or six eggs. I looked over and saw Duke with his head buried inside the trash bag. "Duke!" I yelled, and he quickly popped up his head up out of the trash bag. Taking a first look at him, I realized where the missing eggs had gone. Duke had at least three eggs inside his mouth, whole. I started to move towards Duke to try and get the eggs out of his mouth and it was slow motion from there. I could swear I saw Duke give me a fiendish half smile before he chomped down on the eggs, squirting egg yolk and white out both sides of his mouth. Then the chase was on, around the back yard and into the house, trying to keep him from swallowing the shells and anything else that he could possibly have in his mouth. Well, when I finally caught up to him there was nothing in his mouth except a couple pieces of shell. I can attest to one thing though, the gas that followed his rummaging could kill an elephant.