If you’ve come looking for a Saturday Stupidity joke, I’m sorry; there won’t be one today. We have experienced a tragedy in our family. We are very shaken by events that took place in our home last evening, but at the same time, we are grateful that we were spared a far greater tragedy. I am particularly unsettled because my own foolishness was the cause of it all.

I usually am not a risk-taker, but yesterday I took a very stupid chance. We were having a few people from church over for supper, and my wife was stir-frying Chinese. She had all her ingredients together, and I was helping to cut vegetables, when she discovered that she had forgotten the mushrooms. I ran out to the grocery store to buy some, but they were out. My wife was pretty annoyed, so I made a suggestion. We have had a very mild Winter here, and a warm Spring, so things are starting to grow. We have a corner in our backyard amongst some trees that gets very little sunlight. I had noticed a patch of mushrooms growing there a few days earlier, so I suggested we try them. She agreed, and I went out and picked them.

While I was washing the mushrooms, my wife asked if this was really a good idea, as some wild mushrooms are poisonous. I was pretty sure they weren’t, but to satisfy her, I fed some to the dog with a little left-over gravy. She was not pleased with that idea, but after a couple of hours the dog seemed fine, so she decided to use them.

We were visiting after supper when a neighbor came to our door, looking very upset. He said he had found our dog lying dead out front. My heart nearly stopped. I hurried to the phone and dialed the poison hotline. I was told to get everyone in to the emergency room immediately, which I did.

To make a long story short, the evening ended with my wife and I and six guests getting our stomachs pumped (an absolutely horrible experience), and our dog dead. Thank God we had sent the kids to a sitter for the evening.

I was taking the trash out this morning when my neighbor walked across the street to say how sorry he was about the dog. “I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “That guy that ran over your dog never even stopped.”