The phantom fart hound!

Many years ago - probably 15-17 years ago I guess - when my oldest son was about 10 I think - he invited a friend over to stay for the weekend.  We live in the French alps and it was winter, so full on skiing season.  My favourite local ski resort is a small town called La Clusaz which is about 30 mintues from home.  Isn't it beautiful!

Anyway, we decided to take our boys and their friend up to La Clusaz for dinner.  Unfortunately, being ski season, the place was jammed to the rafters so the restaurant offered to find us a table if we were prepared to sit "in the back by the bar".  No worries.  Not a problem.

So we ordered our food and sat down to wait.  Unfortunately, my ex and I had both ordered foie gras, thinking it was pâté de foie gras.  Wrong!  It was foie gras itself and we both hate the stuff.  But being typically British (me at least) we were too embarassed to send it back so I set about trying to eat it in tiny bites.  My ex, on the other hand, couldn't stomach it at all and since I wasn't about to eat his also we had to revert to "Plan B".  Plan B, of course, was "give it to the dog".

The restaurant had a lovely Pyreneen mountain dog.  Aren't they beautiful? 



"Great Pyrenees Mountain Dog" by HeartSpoon

Well beautiful when they are clean and dry but wet and smelly is another thing.  Nevertheless, my ex kept trying to feed the dog bits of his foie gras.  Only problem was, every time he went to carry out the dastardly deed, the waiter kept running back past our table to order more drinks.  I swear it took about half an hour to get a small portion of foie gras into what, in all truth, was a very enthusiastic large, smelly dog.  But, persistence prevailed and he finally ate the whole lot, much to my ex's relief.

The downside?  Well there had to be a downside didn't there!  The dog by this time was extremely comfortable and happy - if a little "gassy".  So he made himself completely at home right under our table (hidden by the table cloth), just in case any more tender morsels might be coming his way.  BUUUUUT, what do contented, "gassy" dogs do?  They let rip of course.  The only problem was that while the dog kept letting out these horrendous farts nobody could see HIM - just us!

My ex and I started to laugh and the more we laughed the more the dog wagged his tail - thinking himself extremely clever no doubt.  And the more the smell wafted.  The kids had no idea what we were laughing at, and we were so convulsed in laughter that we couldn't tell them!!!

I'm not sure we ever returned to that restaurant, and goodness knows what our poor visitor thought.  He probably told his parents we really had a few screws loose.  Come to think of it, he probably wouldn't be far wrong!