So How'd Ya Get Your Big Old Butt Up There On The Fence Anyhow?

Excerpt from "The Dog Chronicles" - Chapter 7

Veronica’s final flight could have possibly been the best. And, after all the months of rescuing, chasing and worrying, I finally had a witness to my plight. At long last my husband was home. Roger was in the house in his office and unknown to me, my daughter was also about to arrive.
I was actually in the yard when Veronica went sailing over. It was miraculous to behold – one moment she was just a dog enjoying the freedom of her backyard – the next she was experiencing the miracle of flight. I watched her put her nose in the air and I truly think at that moment I witnessed her brain flipping the switch to “off.” She backed up about 12 feet from the fence, made a running dash and catapulted herself toward it. She jumped high enough that her front legs hung over the top of the fence and she scrabbled with her back feet until she achieved enough purchase on the boards to push herself over.
My blood literally went from just coursing through my hardening arteries to the point of boiling and pulsating until I thought my head would explode. I went in the house in search of my husband, explained to him that the “damn” dog had taken a powder AGAIN!
Contrary to what you think you have been able to discern about my personality and character by now, patience is NOT my strong suit. I am enough like my mother to have the “I want it done and I want it done NOW” chromosome. When I have reached a personal crisis point, any delay will only serve to make me want to annihilate not only the source of my problem but anyone who is not responding with my same level of urgency. In short, failure to help me when I request it will put your life in mortal peril. Or mine as this case proved to be.
My darling husband is the “great procrastinator.” He subscribes to the “why do today that which you can put off until tomorrow” credo. Therefore, he failed to come running when summoned and that was the first step in my ultimate undoing.
When I did not see any help forthcoming, the pounding in my head became so severe that I literally saw red. I’m sure anyone watching would have been able to observe my brain shutting down just as Veronica’s had a few minutes earlier.
Stalking to the shed, muttering every expletive known to modern man plus a few that I made up by combining several foul words, I was a woman on a collision course with destiny.
I threw the tools of my fence scaling trade against the fence and began my ascent. I don’t exactly know what went wrong. It was the same problem, the same fence, same ladder and lawn chair and I was certainly the same highly agitated person. Everything was the same except my ability to conquer the situation.
I was able to mount the fence but that was the end of my journey. Somehow once I had one leg on one side of the fence and one on the other, I was hopelessly stuck. There I was, lying on my stomach on top of the fence unable to go anywhere. I didn’t even have the ability to simply go limp and fall off the fence. I’m sure I presented a pretty picture, something akin to a beached whale impaled on a harpoon. Kaylee tells me that I spent a lot of time twitching and trying to fling my leg or legs up onto or over the fence. I'm not sure, by the time she gets to this point in the story she becomes quite incoherent and I don't completely understand her.
Under the roaring in my already deaf ears, I could hear my daughter shouting for my husband. And she must have been really worried because there was an underlying note of real urgency in her voice. Upon further examination, I came to realize what I mistook for compassionate panic was actually her rather feeble attempt to control hysterical, gut wrenching, tear jerking laughter.
Suddenly, my rescuer arrived! It is interesting to me that a person can be amused, worried and genuinely mad as can be all at the same time, but Roger was all these things and more. Somehow he managed to get my fat butt down off the fence without injuring himself but not without a solid scolding about my reckless behavior. I was counseled severely about my lack of patience and need to “do everything myself and right now.” Hello……earth to Roger…had you come when called, none of this would have happened. To add insult to injury, he also managed to retrieve the dog without significant incident and restored order to the animal kingdom in the yard.
Men have this ingrained sense of being the superior sex, more capable at problem solving and just general chest beating testosterone machismo. And now, I had unwittingly contributed to this particular man’s ego. After all, it was a female dog that started the ball rolling and HIS female that rolled it smack into a brick all, or a privacy fence in this case. I think his head grew 2 sizes that day.
It did not help that by the next day my inner thighs were bruised from where they connected to my torso all the way to my knees. This colorful reminder of my day of infamy did nothing to make my husband contrite over his failure to timely respond to my need. In fact, each time those bruises were visible, he had such a self satisfied smirk on his face that I wanted to slap him silly and lock him in the closet.
And then there is my darling daughter who continues to this day to bemoan the fact that she had not had a video camera available. She was and still is convinced she could have been the big winner on America’s Funniest Videos. And the fact that she would have profited from my misfortune would not have bothered her in the slightest. I get NO respect and probably wouldn’t have gotten part of the money either. But hey, it is enough for me to know that I am a constant source of amusement to those I love!



Next Installment: Where, oh where, has my little dog gone?