It is so, so plausible for a dog to eat grapes, and you’re an idiot if you think it isn’t. You’re telling me that there’s no chance that a small dog, a scruffy dog, a fuzzy little mutt wandering the streets of Naples—a stray—could one day chase a butcher’s van through the streets of the city, chasing behind it, nipping at its tires? You mean to tell me that there’s no chance that the dog would follow the van’s cargo onto a container ship bound for the Gibraltar Strait and beyond? And that the ship’s crew would be charmed by the dog and his wiry optimism and would take him in as a pet and give him a name for the first time in his life, you’re saying there’s not any chance of that.
I bet you think there’s no chance the ship could crash, too? That a wild storm on the Tyrrhenian Sea could never throw the ship off course, and cause the wreckage to wash up on the southern coast of France. And I see you now, cogs turning, as you try to act as though having dragged the last waterlogged sailor to safety on the shore, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that the dog could trot off along a small path towards town. That on the way there a wizened old gentleman, sitting on his front deck, couldn’t possibly spot the dog and toss him a scrap of beef from his sandwich, his wily eyes sparkling with good-natured affection.
And of course there’s no chance that the dog would trot his way into town, hmm? No chance, of course, that he’d wind his way through the cobbled streets of the town, scuffling and snuffling in the bushes of an old widow’s front garden, and running away with a bunch of flowers in his mouth, roots dangling from the side. So of course, I hear you say, there’s no chance that he could trot to the centre of the town, where he could come across a fountain at which two young lovers were kissing.
That he wouldn’t drop the flowers at their feet and bark, attracting the attention of the young man. That the young man wouldn’t kneel down, taking the flowers and petting the dog in one gracious movement, and murmur a gentle “merci, mon ami” (or something of the like), handing the flowers to his lover. And that she wouldn’t laugh and kiss him again, and that he wouldn’t take her by the hand and walk away from the fountain, turning and gesturing to the dog to follow. And that the dog wouldn’t follow, trotting beside them happily as they walked, arm in arm, to the vineyard in which the young man worked.
You mean to tell me that the young man wouldn’t swing open the gate of the vineyard with a low creak, turning to look at the sunset basking the valley and its green, green grass, before plucking a bunch of grapes straight off the vine and placing them, delicately, into the hands of the young woman? And that he wouldn’t pluck a single grape from the bunch and toss it to the dog, which would leap up in the air to catch it in a graceful bound, swallowing it whole? All of this is entirely plausible—if not probable—and just goes to show what an idiot you are for thinking a dog would never eat a grape. In the circumstances above, of course a dog could eat a grape.
Which would be tragic, because dogs are allergic to grapes.
