Video courtesy Today
Man's best friend did the worst thing imaginable – chewed up his owner's Super Bowl tickets.
And not just any Super Bowl tickets, the chagrined master, an Arizona recreation manager named Chris Gallagher, tells his local paper, the Glendale Star. But $900-apiece tickets to club-level seats at the 30-yard line on Sunday.
The culprit: a 3-year-old black Labrador retriever named Buddy, who, after a courier slipped it through the mail slot to Gallagher's house, tried to open his master's FedEx envelope with the tickets inside – leaving only bits and pieces. (The culprit was featured on Friday's Today show.)
"It wasn't funny at the time, and it happened after a bad day," said Gallagher. "I was basically getting them sent to my house for a friend."
Then again, while pointing out Buddy's "big golden eyes and his wagging tail," Gallagher said: "About an hour or two after it happened, I was laughing about it. This is the ultimate 'my dog ate it' story."
Lessons Learned
Still, the laughing didn't start until it was learned the tickets could be replaced, because Buddy wisely didn't destroy the tickets' bar codes.The final score: Both Buddy and Gallagher learned their lessons. The four-legged guy "was confined to the backyard for a couple of days," says Gallagher, while the two-legged one is "still struggling with Buddy to make sure he's not digging or chewing."
Super Bowl XLII takes airs on FOX Sunday. The official pregame starts at 2 p.m. ET and features Alicia Keys, as well as a new Paula Abdul video. Game kickoff is 6:18 p.m., and halftime entertainment is Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
(In between, on the field, will be the New England Patriots and the New York Giants.)