NEVER Say Never! Part 1

It all started at a party. I ran into a former co-worker I hadn’t seen in a long time and she was sporting a large cast on her right arm. She told me how she broke it, and I just looked at her incredulously and asked “How do you do your hair and makeup?” “I don’t” she replied. I resisted a quick glance at her hair. My head started to spin, and I said “Well, that could never happen to me, because I wouldn’t be able to leave the house.” She just smiled.

Just a few days later, I was watching TV and our black lab, Skye, came into the room and laid her head on my lap. I realized she hadn’t been walked that day and it was already ten o’clock at night. I asked my husband to do it, and he said he was waiting for a phone call. I asked my son, and he was right in the middle of a computer game. “Okay, Skye, you’re stuck with me” I told her. I don’t usually like to walk her after dark, but I figured I would just go around our block a few times.

I wrapped the leash around my wrist to keep her close to me, and we headed out. At the end of the block is a park where the pool and tennis courts are. We were just passing the parking lot, when I saw a dark shape dart across our path--a rabbit. The next thing I knew, I was airborne. Now, I don’t really understand how a seventy pound dog can pull a one hundred and twenty pound woman behind them like a kite, but I think it has something to do with drag and thrust, or some kind of physics thing. Skye stopped, and something I’m more familiar with, gravity, caused me to hit the ground hard. I heard a crunch.

I was laying there on my stomach, and I reached with my left hand, which still had the leash, to my right shoulder and I could feel my collar bone, which is supposed to be mostly horizontal, was now mostly vertical. I begged Skye not to move, and she sat about a foot from me. Every time I tried to get up, the pain in my shoulder increased. I lay motionless for a very long time, wondering how I get into these messes.

Five or ten minutes later, I saw my neighbor across the street come out his front door and start calling out for his cat. I yelled his name, and he looked out into the darkness. I identified myself to him and he headed in the direction of my voice. Now, what happened next is a real mystery to me. Skye is the kind of dog, who if confronted with a masked burglar breaking into our house, would go to get her ball to see if he would play. But, something instinctual must have kicked in, because as my neighbor approached, she growled and bared her teeth. We decided he should get my husband. Now, this next part is even more of a mystery. I could see my house from where I was, and my husband walked, not ran, chatting away, probably asking my neighbor if he knew of anyone thinking of selling or buying a house. Finally, they got to me and between the two of them; they managed to get me to our driveway, where I crumpled to the ground to wait for my husband to pull the car out of the garage.

My daughter came running out to see me, and it was great to have company, SINCE MY HUSBAND TOOK OVER TWENTY MINUTES. My daughter stopped worrying about me when I asked her to bring my purse outside so I could freshen up my lipstick before going to the emergency room. I mean, really, I was injured, not uncivilized! Finally, the garage door went up, and I got in the car. Turns out Hubby didn’t know what hospital to take me to, so he called our insurance man, who didn’t answer, and took fifteen minutes to call back. Good thing I wasn’t bleeding to death. We headed to the hospital….

Look for “NEVER Say Never! Part 2” coming soon…