Licking his chops clean, Fleegle ambles out from behind the bamboo in the backyard. “What’s your favorite toy?” he asks.

I put my book down. “My bicycle, I guess.”

“Your beach bike is awesome.”

I recently took Fleegle and my fat bike to the beach and rode for miles on the sand with Fleegle running loose alongside me. “I figured you’d say that. What about you?”

“My bungee cord.”

“You like chewing on that hard plastic, huh?”

“Yep,” he says. “What’s your favorite treat?”

“Coffee. And you?”

“You should be asking what’s not my favorite treat. I’d say carrots.”

“I thought you liked carrots. They’re supposed to be good for your teeth.”

“I’d like them more with peanut butter on them. You know what else? It’s good for you when I eat peanut butter.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, when you give me some peanut butter to eat, and then later see something stuck to my teeth, you go, oh, that’s just peanut butter on Fleegle’s teeth and you don’t stress out about what it really is.”

He licks his lips from corner to corner, and the brownish tinge to his tongue makes me think he’s been eating peanut butter. “Fleegle, what have you gotten into?”

He thumps his tail against the ground. “Let’s just say I found a stash of peanut butter behind the bamboo.”

“Does this peanut butter have a kitty’s face on the label?”

Fleegle’s smile is interrupted by a belch. “Oops.”

I pinch my nose against the stench. “Oh, Fleegle, that smells awful. No more ‘peanut butter’ for you.”

“That’s okay, It’s all gone anyway, at least until the Peanut Kitty comes around again.”

 

Next Negotiating with Cookies – It’s Time

Previous Negotiating with Cookies – The Candyman