Adding to the TTAFM list

TTAFM. Things Taken Away From Murphy.

Every day it seems as if this dog has something else in his mouth that belongs to me. It could be a sock that he's taken from the laundry basket, a glove that he's plucked off the back of the couch, one of my hats...pretty much anything.

To his credit, he never damages any of this stuff. Quite the contrary. Every time, he brings these things to me and gently hands them over on demand, as if to say "with great honor I am giving you this precious gift..."

Today though, he really took it to extremes. I had this tin of Christmas cookies that used to contain assorted types of cookies, each type stacked in it's own paper wrapper much like you'd find around a cupcake. The cookies had been eaten, a few at a time each evening, and now they're gone but he tin is still sitting on the floor next to my reading chair, and not long ago it still had a dozen of these empty paper cupcake-like wrappers in it.

But as I sat here typing just a short time ago, I heard something rustling the tin. As there's just two of us here, the suspect was fairly obvious. "Murphy! Get away from that! Not yours!"

A moment later, he walks into my office with one of the paper wrappers in his mouth. He's not chewing it up though. He's just holding it by the edge.

"Give me that," I say, reaching out to take it from him. He releases it without protest and I put it in the trash can next to my desk.
"Not yours," I say as Murphy turns and walks out.

A few seconds later, I hear rustling in the tin again.

"Murphy..." I say.

He walks in with another one of the papers in his mouth. This time he walks right over to me and waits for me to take it.

I sigh and take it from him. And as I put it in the trash can, he walks right back out and I hear the tin rustling again. WTF? A few seconds later, here he is with a third one.

I take this one away from him and wait to see what he does. Sure enough, he turns around, goes back to the tin, and brings me a fourth wrapper. And a fifth, and a sixth. Every time I take one from him, he goes and gets another one and presents it to me as it it's some sort of gift or offering. He does this nine times, then he suddenly quits.

Hey, where's the last three?" I ask him.

But I guess that he's saving those for another day, because he just plunked down on the floor next to me, his mission apparently accomplished.You want the last three, too? You know where they are. Help yourself.