My Business Is Now…Office Business

Hello, dear reader. Winston here, and I need you to sit down for this one. Grab a snack, get comfortable, because what I’m about to tell you is the kind of story that keeps a dog up at night, replaying it over and over, wondering how it all went so wrong so fast.

It started, as most disasters do, with something completely innocent. My mom sent an email out to her entire office. Nothing unusual there. She sends emails all the time. Boring human stuff, usually. Meeting notes, schedules, whatever it is you people do all day while I nap on the good pillow.

But this email was different. This email mattered to me personally. See, some of her coworkers had been parking a little too close to our building, which meant they were pulling their cars way too far into the grass. My grass. My personal bathroom. My sacred strip of lawn where I conduct my most important business of the day. And these cars, these thoughtless, inconsiderate vehicles, had been cutting into my routine something fierce. A dog cannot do his business properly when there’s a bumper where there should be dandelions.

So when my mom sent that email asking everyone to please pull in a little less far, I felt seen. I felt heard. I felt like, finally, someone in this office was standing up for my rights as a French Bulldog with a very specific bathroom schedule.

Naturally, I wanted to thank her.

Now here’s where things took a turn, dear reader, and I want you to understand that I had good intentions. Pure, wholesome, grass-related intentions. I saw the reply button. I saw what I thought was a private little thank-you note forming in my head, something sweet, something between me and my mom. Instead, my paw landed on Reply All.

Reply. All.

To the entire office.

And did I write a short, simple thank you? Oh, no. Absolutely not. Here is what I wrote, dear reader. Word. For. Word.

“Mom!! It’s me, your best boy!! Just wanted to say THANK YOU for standing up for my bathroom rights today. You truly are my hero. I also want to say sorry again about the whole…pavement situation. I genuinely thought it was grass, Mom. I really, truly did. In my defense, the lighting was weird, and there were cars in the way, and everything looked very grassy from where I was squatting. It did not feel grassy once my business was underway, but by then, well. You know. It was too late. And I want you to know that I felt terrible watching you scrape it off the pavement. Truly. That was not my finest moment, and it was not your finest moment either, and I take full responsibility. Mostly. Anyway!! All that to say, I love you. You are the best human a Frenchie could ever ask for, and I promise to try harder to locate the actual grass next time. Paws and kisses forever and always, your darling, remorseful boy. XOXO”

Yes. That is what went to the entire office.

I hit send before I even realized what I had done. And then it was out there. Floating through the inboxes of people my mother sees every single day. People who now know, with startling clarity, about my bathroom routine and my strong feelings on grass real estate.

I am, dear reader, absolutely mortified.

I have never in my life wanted to crawl under a couch and stay there until next Tuesday more than I did in that moment. My ears went flat. My little body just sort of sank into the carpet. I couldn’t even look at my mom’s phone when it started buzzing with replies. I didn’t want to know. I still don’t fully want to know, if I’m being honest with you.

The worst part is I can’t even blame anyone else for this one. This was all me. My paw, my keyboard mishap, my inability to grasp the difference between Reply and Reply All, a distinction that I now understand is apparently very important in the human workplace.

I spent the rest of the day in what I can only describe as a shame spiral. I refused my dinner for a solid four minutes, which for those who know me is an eternity. I sighed dramatically on the living room floor. I gave my mom the most pitiful look I could manage, hoping she understood that I was suffering just as much as she probably was, sitting there wondering how her dog had access to her email in the first place.

So here I am, dear reader, humbled in a way I did not know was possible. I still stand by my message, mind you. The parking situation genuinely had me confused and flustered in ways I cannot fully explain, and something needed to be said. But perhaps, in the future, I’ll stick to expressing my bathroom-related grievances through the tried and true method of standing at the door and staring meaningfully.

Lesson learned. Mortification achieved. Grass, hopefully, will be easier to locate.

Until next time, dear reader, please double-check your reply settings before you hit send. Learn from my shame.

With deep, everlasting embarrassment,

Winston 🐾