Saturday afternoon, Hubby and I were sitting on the couch in the family room, when the dog – who we thought was sound asleep by the open sliding glass door – began to bark his fool head off.

It was the same sort of bark he gives when he corners a bubonic plague riddled prairie dog in our back yard. Or when he traps a suspicious short/shirt combo in the master bathroom. It was a something’s-not-right-here-but-I-can’t-tell-what-because-I-need-a-haircut-and-can’t-see-past-my-overgrown-bangs variety of bark.

So I walk around the corner of the family room and into the kitchen calling back to Hubby, “What a total dope! The dog’s barking at a baby carrot on the rug by the sliding glass door. But where did that carrot come from…HELP ME! HELP MEEEEEE!!! NO TEDDY! STAY AWAY!!!! NO! NONONONONO!! ALL THE PEOPLE WHO CAN HEAR ME, COME TO ME NOW AND HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! “

This is what the dog was actually barking at, which I at first mistook for a baby carrot that someone had randomly discarded on the floor after lunch.  (And yes, in our family, carrots randomly get discarded places, so this being a carrot on the rug was a distinct possibility.  Why do you ask?  Are random carrots NOT happening at your house?!?)

I know, RIGHT?! It LOOKS like a baby carrot – right color, right size – until you notice it has EYES!!! Big, freaky EYES!!! And as the dog was growing cojones and creeping closer during his barking session, it started to rear up in such a weird way that I was worried it was gonna start shooting venom at the dog’s face…or my face…or really the dog’s face.

I have NEVER seen anything like it before – unless you count that Discovery Channel special on impossible-to-believe google eyed caterpillars. And I seem to recall those caterpillars all know how to shoot flesh-melting venom out of their eyes when disturbed. (Ok, I may have made the flesh-melting venom thing up, but there WAS something mentioned about their eyes.  And in the heat of the moment, the venom seemed like a distinct possibility because the carrot-with-eyeballs was teetering on its back legs and rocking back and forth like a cobra being piped out of its basket. Why else would it be doing that?! That rocking thing??? If not to spray us with venom. HELP ME! PEOPLE WHO CAN HEAR ME, COME TO ME NOW AND HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! “

Hubby, one room over, was the last to arrive fyi. But he saved the day despite his late arrival. He chopped the carrot up* and we had it in a nice salad for dinner.

*PETA, Exotic Caterpillar Lovers and Lepidopterists: Ha, ha, ha.  I am completely kidding about the chopping up thing. Hubby actually had it climb onto his face and ate it directly instead of chopping it up. Ok, ok. Still kidding. He skewered it with a twig and fed it to the dog. Stop. It. Hubby coaxed it onto a stick and then placed it gently in a tree. And that’s the truth, pllllltttttt!