"Passover grapes? Pass over grapes!"
Since I met my husband in 2009, I've spent almost every Passover with his family on Long Island (except one year when all the papers I had to write got together and started laughing at me.). Still, Passover 2016 was our first one as a married couple, so it had extra significance.
Some highlights include:
1. Accidentally calling my father-in-law "Baby." The light was dim and he bears superficial resemblance to his elder son, plus I was distracted and not really looking at him. Rather, I was looking at the framed photo my husband's grandparents had downloaded, printed and framed, which we'd originally posted on Facebook. "Aw, Baby, look! Your grandparents put up the picture the clerk took from when we got our marriage license!" If you're going to accidentally mistake your father-in-law for your husband, there are more embarrassing things you can say.
2. Speaking of my grandparents-in-law, taking a nap on the couch, and my grandmother-in-law affectionately rubbing my head as if I were a dog.
3. Speaking of dogs, this interaction with Maisy, who belongs to my husband's aunt, uncle and cousin.
Maisy: Hi Alaina how are you?
Alaina: Um...I'm good. Just getting some Seder salad.
Maisy: Ha ha you're so funny. I don't know if you noticed but I'm incredibly adorable and have like gigantic saucer eyes. And also am incredibly adorable.
Alaina: I noticed. But Maisy I don't know if it's a good idea for me to give you food.
Maisy: Gigantic. Saucer eyes.
A: You raise a good point. Hmm, tell you what....if I give you a grape from my salad, will you lick it out of my hand and also give me your undying love?
Maisy: Duh!
A: It's a deal! I'm not a big fan of grapes in salad, anyway...
Maisy: Yeah, they're gross. All food is gross. You should give it all to me.
I would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for you meddling guilt! Unfortunately, I'm a (mostly) ethical person. So I told my husband's aunt and cousin that I'd fed their dog a grape, just for full disclosure, in case they had her on a low-sugar diet or something and so knowledge of the half-grape would allow them to make a more informed dietary decision for her later in the week. I figured maybe other people were feeding her under the table too; all the more reason to own up to my indulgence.
Oh s--t. Oh s--t, s--t, s--t. Did you know that grapes and avocados are toxic to dogs? Almost everyone knows about the chocolate thing but grapes are pretty obscure. Thank you, elementary school education, for wasting my time with DARE--which is empirically proven to have an adverse effect--but you couldn't have spent a week propagandizing me not to feed grapes and avocados to dogs, as well as chocolates? We managed to remember the order of the planets; we can remember three whole things not to feed our beloved pets.
So that was awkward. After much apologizing, other family members assuring me that they hadn't known "grapes = dog poison" either, me assuring everyone that it had only been half a grape, much internet research and weight calculation later, we came to the conclusion that Maisy wasn't doomed for death. Which is good, because what would that have meant to the undying love she'd offered me in exchange for the grape? Was "undying" relative to her life? Man, you'd think a Faustian bargain would come with fewer complications!
We watched her for the next few hours. Not only did she not die, she did not show any sign of sickness or pain. I was, for every imaginable reason, incredibly relieved. Maisy apparently took it for granted that everyone was paying close attention to her and her waste.
The fact that I got lucky does not mean that you should feed you dog, or dog-in-law, grapes.
No, you should buy their affection the healthy way. Scratch their bellies until your hands are sore. Which I did, for the rest of Pesach. I'd learned my lesson...Maisy wouldn't trick me into giving her any more food! Instead, I happily became her indentured masseuse. Yeah, turns out undying love from adorable animals is a two-way street.
They love you. Ergo, you will do their bidding.
