My dog is underprivileged.  As a diabetic, she now only gets very specific treats in very specific amounts. Before her affliction, however, her currency was teeny, thumbnail size MilkBones, and her most favorite word in the world was “biscuit.” We talked about making some for dinner the other night and even though it has been a couple years since she has had one, her ears still perked right up at the word.

But my favorite story about this delicacy could be titled, “Dog Bones: Not Just for Dogs!”

When my mom was in college, she was friends with a math genius who worked off some of his tuition as a teaching assistant. Like all teachers everywhere, he had to deal with kids who flunked tests and then came in seeking clemency. These office hour visits were fairly predictable. Some kids asked for retakes, some kids asked for explanations, but some asked for a straight-up break. This guy was not dumb, he administered the tests and knew who had really tried as opposed to who had shown up hung over and simply whiffed. For the latter visitors, he kept a box of dog biscuits in his desk. When the kid would start talking about how it wasn’t fair and so on and so forth, my mom’s friend would pull out the box, shake it a little, make sure to pull out one of the especially ugly green biscuits, and start chomping away.  “Sorry,” he’d tell the kid. “I missed breakfast. Want one? No? Do go on with what you’re saying.”  My mom said she was hanging out with him for one such visit and accepted a biscuit.  “Dry, but not awful,” she told me. “Just boring. Kinda like cardboard.”

This anecdote stood me in good stead when I was in school and rode the late bus home with a pervy little jerk who spent equal time criticizing my clothes and trying to rip them off me. After two days of dealing with that garbage, I came prepared. I pulled a baggie of my own dog’s treats out of my book bag and went to town. Dude never bothered me again. And when he told other kids that I ate dog biscuits, the reaction showed me who my friends were—I avoided the “ew, she’s so gross” crowd and ran with the folks who came up to me laughing and asked, “you did that? Classic!’

Granted, I’m not sure how well that works in the adult world, but I can attest to the fact that people are less inclined to mess with you if you act a little nuts. And Pup-peroni is cheaper than pepper spray….