I'm a friend of Bill W....

There are certain people belong - and should go - to Alcoholics Anonymous.

My dog is not one of them. However, the drunk girl who fed him jello shots might benefit from becoming acquainted with Bill W.

Last night, I had my weekly kickball game. Maverick loves to attend the games and is our official team mascot. He loves all the attention he gets from my teammates and he gets to play with other dogs...be outside, and he even gets a bite of the occasional hot dog. Every time I pick up his little bag to go to kickball, he gets so excited.

I am the first base(wo)man. I like that Justin Morneau and I have some special bond because of this. In any case, I'm on the field and I leave Maverick to his own devices on the sideline. I look over at one point in the inning and see some girl feeding jello shots to my eight month old puppy. He's thinking that he's getting a treat and this girl is laughing hysterically.

I went over to her, called her a few choice words and questioned her ability to think...eventually, my team separated us. Her excellent logic pointed out that she thought it'd be funny to get a dog drunk. So. Maverick and I leave the game and the poor little guy is scared to death because he can't figure out what's wrong with him. He's having problems walking straight and he keeps sitting back on his haunches and looking at his paws.

We (meaning drunky and myself) went to pick up Jeff and we subsequently head into Uptown to the SoHo Cafe for dinner. Maverick is kind of lolling against Jeff's stomach. We decided to just pick something up and take it home because our dog is drunk. In any case, while I'm parking, Maverick throws up all over the back seat of the car....so, we clean it up...and both of us are fuming at this point. Maverick is crying and moaning outside the car because he doesn't feel well and he's embarrassed and afraid he's going to get in trouble for puking.

Eventually, we make it home. Maverick goes to sleep it off. At some point, I pick him up to take him to bed and he's moaning because the poor little guy has a hang over. Needless to say, sleep was not an option last night. The only thing that made Maverick feel better was rubbing his belly. So, I stayed up with my sick "child" all night long.

But, fear not, he was fine this morning and even attempted to swallow a battery whole. If this dog lives to see his first birthday, I will consider it a miracle.