Awesome rant!! I wish to co-sign in full!! 
Thanks (blushing).
Reach out to your Congressional representative. I applied for a passport renewal in February 2021 (it expired in November 2021). In late June 2021, I received a letter saying that my passport picture wasn’t clear enough and to send in a new one. I did so the next week. By the end of August, I still hadn’t had an update. After I had renewed my passport, I had booked overseas travel for October 2021. I reached out to my Congressional representative the Thursday before Labor Day, and received my new passport the day after Labor Day. They can work wonders!
A wee (ok, maybe not so wee) rant about another wholly self-inflicted and costly ruined Sunday night.
I look forward to watching some of my favorite programs on Sunday evenings. I’m engrossed in the current House of Dragons saga and last night promised to be an action-packed episode (and delivered!).
In order to not have to stir myself during the program, I set a piece of chocolate zucchini cake on a napkin to thaw on the far side of a tray next to my preferred spot on the sofa. In between the tray and where I sit is the area where my one-year-old dachshund hangs out with his chew toys.
Just as the gripping episode of HoD ended, I reached for what I anticipated to be my now-thawed piece of chocolate cake.
It was gone.
I do not know how a dog who is snugged up against my leg manages to stretch unobserved across his own real estate and deep into the tray (which he is forbidden to do) to quietly steal and eat a whole piece of cake. But he did. Left nary a telltale crumb, stain or trace of his evil deed. If I hadn’t been stone-cold certain of where I’d left the cake to thaw, I would have doubted it had ever been there at all.
So… dogs. Chocolate. Also sugar substitute (Swerve), which may be something else that could kill him if it’s erythritol-based. I calculated that he’d consumed roughly 1 1/2 teaspoons of cocoa powder and 2 1/2 teaspoons of Swerve. He’s a 15-pound dog. Off to the emergency vet hospital we go, more than an hour away.
It’s unpleasant to drive at night on two-lane roads where everyone forgets to dim their headlights. Also unpleasant is when the dog, a chronic stress-pooper and puker, lets fly from both ends just moments into the journey. At least the cake was expelled.
For added fun, we had the LEO vehicle behind me that didn’t look like a LEO vehicle until the driver lit up its lights like a UFO just off my rear bumper. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, but until he swung out and passed me on the left, it felt otherwise.
All’s well that ends well, turns out it wasn’t enough chocolate to worry about, the Swerve isn’t toxic to dogs and the visit only cost $200! Still, ouch and bother.
By the time I got home and unwound from the whole stupid mess, it was after 2:00 a.m. So much for my relaxing Sunday evening!
The dog is fine, so that’s the main thing.
People! Stop treating zucchini as if it were food. Sheesh.
My thought exactly!
Very glad all ended well!
I am telling you, don’t knock this zucchini cake till you’ve tried it!
I detest zucchini – except in this cake, where it becomes undetectable. It’s the best chocolate cake I’ve ever had and it takes about two minutes to mix together for baking. Truly, the recipe is fantastic. 
Thanks. Me, too.
My wife has corrupted me and I now like zoodles.
My family had a miniature dachshund named Goliath. He loved to curl up in small spaces- inside your shirt, in pillow cases etc
Goliath sounds adorable!
Dachshunds do love to sleep in places where they’re hidden, or at least they think they are.
I wish I could get a picture of Ollie just now. He’s lying next to me on his back, stretched out with his head and top half under a throw, bottom half belly up with two rear paws, penis and tail exposed, sound asleep.
Rude. But cute as hell.
I’m about to give up on Facebook. At least half of what shows up on my feed are dumbass memes, “quotes” from people who never said them and photos of multicolored AI flowers (with oooing and ahhing comments from dodos).
Even Twitter isn’t that loaded with 
Well, maybe it is…
Are we sharing the recipe? Did I miss it?
I just made “zesty zucchini pickles” and they are amazing but quite strong flavor-wise.
LOL, well, there is such strong anti-zucchini sentiment in this thread that no one asked for it. But if you want it, I’m happy to share.
There is, buried deeply away, a collection of MMP recipes or perhaps Mumper recipes, that I can’t seem to resurrect through the discourse search function. That would be a great place to stash that recipe long term. I know several Mumpers are growing zucchini and several of them enjoy baking, so it would be a good addition.
@FairyChatMom or @swampbear can no doubt tell us how to find it.
Our previous dog–a Catahoula mix, about 50#–jumped up on the counter in her first week and devoured a flourless chocolate cayenne cake. We were freaked. At least a pound of dark chocolate and a tablespoon of cayenne. She was like, “Wut?”. Lived just fine for 14 more years. YMMV.
Chocolate Zucchini Cake
Yield: 9 x 13-inch cake (I cut it into 16 pieces)
Ingredients
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups (11.25 ounces) granulated sugar
3/4 cup buttermilk (homemade version, add ¾ TB lemon juice OR vinegar)
1/2 cup melted coconut oil
1 medium-sized zucchini, ends cut and shredded, but no need to peel
1 1/2 cup (7.5 ounces) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (2 ounces) natural, unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup chocolate chips
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9 x 13-inch pan with cooking spray and set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla, sugar, buttermilk and oil.
Stir in the shredded zucchini.
In another bowl, blend the flour, cocoa powder, salt, soda and baking powder. Add to wet ingredients.
Stir until just combined and no dry streaks remain.
Spread the batter evenly in the pan. Sprinkle chocolate chips evenly over batter. They will sink during baking.
Bake for 25-35 minutes until the top springs back lightly to the touch and a toothpick comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs.
Let cool completely.
Serve alone, with chocolate frosting or a dollop of lightly sweetened chocolate whipped cream
This cake is delicious all by itself, but of course you can frost it if you want!
My personal preference is to replace half the sugar with Swerve and use stevia-sweetened chocolate chips.
Also, it freezes beautifully.
Thanks, Boo! If someone shares the location of the MMP recipe collection, I will proudly add this one to it!
Great story. I can only imagined how worried you must have been! I’m glad all turned out well for your Catahoula chocolate hound.
Honestly, if it had only been the chocolate, I might have taken the chance. But my vet had just freaked me out about erythritol last week, so I was also concerned about the Swerve. Turns out Swerve is not erythritol-based. Good to know!
I did this on Wednesday, and almost immediately got an email requesting proof of my travel plans; I assume this was to establish a basis for expediting my request. Then this morning we had an exchange of emails regarding if I had a tracking number for the mail I had sent on June 15, which I didn’t have because I had just dropped in a mailbox. Apparently it had gotten lost in the mail, because the passport office claimed they never got it. Fortunately, I had gotten two certified copies of my birth certificate, so I had another to send in. My Congresswoman gave me an address to send it to, headed “Attn: Congressional”, and asking me to provide her office with the tracking number. I put together a mailing and took it down to the PO, sending it two-day priority. Then I sent the tracking info to her office. Now we’ll see what happens.
I had a flashback to when I was working for Social Security. Every so often I would get handed a folder with a flag on it about “Congressional Inquiry”, and I would have to drop whatever I had been doing and expedite processing on whatever was pending on that case. I’m hoping that’s what will happen here.
Zucchini cannot win in a race against pumpkin!