Can a writer collect workman's comp?

I can't believe it!  I'm sitting here with broken ribs after an Alpha Male encounter with my little bitty puppy.  Okay, at 85+ pounds and 17 months he's not exactly little bitty anymore.  If the pain and humiliation weren't enough, I had to sit through a lecture from my doctor on how I needed to train my dog.

Sailor, the yellow labrador is a great dog, an enthusiastic dog, and most of all a happy dog.  He even got a trophy at DOG OBEDIENCE SCHOOL!  (Never mind what the trophy was for, that's another story.)

He sits, he stays, he shakes, he heels... all of that stuff.  He's just a little resistant to change.  Once a pattern has been established, he likes to keep it that way.  I'm amazed that within a couple of minutes of straight up 8:00 PM every night, he lets us know that it is time for a Greenie.  I've never seen it before, but somehow this dog even adjusts his internal clock for daylight savings time.  When the time changes come, it's not 7:00 or not 9:00 but still straight up 8:00 by the clock!  Simply amazing.  I'm sure that this yellow ball of fur actually knows how to tell time.

Ah, but I digress.  The ribs.

My wife loves to read in the early, early morning (sometimes it's even MY stuff she likes to read...) and Sailor the yellow labrador has become her reading partner.  He sits next to her in my seat on the sofa as she reads.  In the early, early morning, this is not a problem for me because I am either pounding on my keyboard (creating new stuff for her to read) or sleeping like a normal person at an early, early hour of the morning.

Somehow, Sailor the yellow labrador refuses look at the clock at reading time.  Therefore, he refuses to understand that my seat on the sofa is only his at certain times of the day!  I think that Sailor the yellow labrador is somehow genetically connected to either the grasshopper or the springbok (that little African antelope that boing-boings all over the place) because of the distances he can jump from a standing position.

He digresses, again, one thinks as one reads these words.  Nope, the jumping is part of the story!

Sometimes, after straight up 8:00 PM, and the Greenie has been distributed, Mr. Author and his wife (Mrs. Author) like to relax on said sofa... together.  Perhaps we read, or plug in a DVD, or watch one of the televised autopsy shows.  We look at Sailor the yellow labrador and say to him.  "This is our time, this is not reading time.  Look at the clock."

At which point, he immediately begins a completely obnoxious behavior known as Yarking.  This obscene cross between a Yip! and a Bark! is one of the most grating, horrible, torturous sounds ever foisted upon mankind by any living creature (second only to the screeching violins from the shower scene in Psycho).  Yarking is so bad that listening to it even pisses off the dog, at which point he transmorphs into the terrifying grasshopper-springbok boinging creature.

Without warning, this hideous mutant is airborne, landing seconds later on the Author's nether parts, after which, the room fills with the cacophony of multiple, overlapping shouts of the phrase NO! BAD DOG!

On most normal evenings, this cycle only needs to be repeated twenty or thirty times before Sailor the yellow lab decides that he is tired and elects to lay down and sleep.  Last Wednesday there were no repeat cycles...

The male human rib is not huge.  Maybe 3/4 of an inch in width and 3/8 of an inch in thickness is a good sized riblet.  Human ribs are not structurally engineered to support the entire weight of an 85+ pound yellow labrador retreiver focused in the circumference of a single paw.  I repeat, human ribs are not structurally engineered to support the entire weight of an 85+ pound yellow labrador retreiver focused in the circumference of a single paw.

The pain pills are good, but the brace is uncomfortable.

'Be careful,' said the doctor. 'There are certain things you cannot do without risking a punctured lung.'

'What are the things that I cannot do?' I asked.

'Any of the things that you would like to do.'

Poor Mr. Author...  Poor Mrs. Author...

Ironically, the incident of Sailor the springbok/grasshopper mutated yellow labrador is not the first time Mr. Author has ended up with broken bones as the result of a cute, fuzzy, lovable family dog.

Many years (and dogs) ago, Mr. Author suffered a compound (e.g. bloody enough for autopsy TV) fracture of the left ankle when a black labrador, Irish setter mix ran between his legs full speed while still on leash.

Just a few years ago, a brand new, nine week old white lab female, got in between Mr. Authors feet at the top of the stairs.  Mr. Author was in a cast for eight weeks over that one, and in the middle of crisscrossing the nation in economy class... (but that is yet another story.)

Sailor the yellow labrador is not so great at telling time after all.  He may know when it is Greenie time, but he has no comprehension of when the far end of the sofa belongs to me!

ttfn,  rlc

Man, do I LOVE walkin'. 

It's like reading a hundred newspapers in the space of twenty blocks.  I can find out everything I want to know about my neighborhood in a twenty minute spin.  That Molly, she's a real hottie.  Yup, she was by her not long ago.  Riley and the Fox made the papers.  Of course they do every morning.  That Fox just loves to give Riley the tease; she comes up behind him then shoots away just as he turns.

Mostly I walk with my Mom and Fuzzy.  Everybody in the neighborhood points and laughs, 'cause Fuzzy has got a way of getting their attention.  The first thing we always do, walkin' with Mom, is that she tries to get me to be a Good Boy! I've got things to do, pals to meet up with; I can't be wasting my time on this Good Boy stuff.  My Mom, on the other hand, is pretty darned insistent.  She pulls and tugs and turns me around.

"Be Good," she says, "Be a Good Boy!"

Ok, I wanna.  I wanna be a Good Boy, but it's just so darned hard.  When the neigbor kids come running out of their houses, they want to PLAY!  No body is yelling at them to Be Good!  So I just try to play along.  They come running, and I go jumping and then...

Wait a second, is that Kelsey in the newspaper?  OK, so I have a bit of an attention span problem.  Kelsey is all right, but that guy Bogey that hangs out with her is a nasty one sometimes.  He just gets so bossy I can't stand it. 

I love to carry Fuzzy, 'cept when something really interesting comes along.  I just drop old Fuzzy out of my life, and figure I can pick him up on the rebound.  Mom doesn't approve.  She picks Fuzzy up off the ground and just carries him herself for a while.  At least until I get bored and decide to carry him again.  That usually happens when people pass by in their cars.  For some reason I don't really understand, they just seem to LOVE it when I'm carryin' Fuzzy.  Hey, if it'll get me a little attention, I'll carry him all day.

This morning I went walkin' with my Dad.  He lets me spend more time on the newspaper and walks faster than Mom.  And he never, ever, ok HARDLY never, ever talks about me being a Good Boy.  Only thing about Dad is he won't carry Fuzzy very much.  If I drop old Fuzzy on the ground, Dad just picks him up and gives him right back.

"You take Fuzzy," he says.  "I'm not gonna carry him."

Sometimes I just tease him by dropping Fuzzy again and again... then I'll run fast and make him catch me.  I wish I didn't this morning, though...

I dropped Fuzzy and Dad picked it up.

"Take Fuzzy," he said.

Nope, I thought, so I took off, and Dad came a'running too.  'Spose I should tell you that Dad is a little bigger than he should be.  He suddenly looked really pale and just stopped.  Next thing I know Dad's on the ground.

"Get Up Dad, Get Up!" I tried to tell him as loud as I could.

"Riley" I yelled.  "Molly!, Bogey!, Kelsey!, Duke! Yapper!"  I yelled as loud as I could, but nobody came to help, and Dad would NOT get up.

"Get Up Dad, Get Up!"

A man came running out of his house and looked at my Dad.  Then he looked at me.

"Where do you live?" the man said.

"Right Over There!" I yelled to him, but he didn't seem to understand.

He looked in my Dad's pockets and came up empty.  Then he looked at me.  He stared at me, and he started putting his hand to my throat.

"Get Away!" I yelled at him.  I wanted to run away, but I couldn't leave my Dad.

He grabbed me by the collar, and looked very closely at my Big Bone Tag.  Then he called a number on his little pocket telephone.

The firemen came, and Dad is all right.

Tomorrow, I'm going to be a Good Boy!

Tomorrow, I'm going to be the Best Dog in the Neighborhood!

 
(fiction by Ron Lynch Chalice)
First published 29 March 2006 - Authors Den

Sailor, the infamous award winning* dog, unveiled his own website... www.sailorthedog.com March 13, 2007.  The website will feature stories and anecdotes about this soon-to-be world famous celebridog.  Publicitiy photos, acting credits, wallpapers, calendars and more.  Watch for more details coming soon!

*Sailor won a trophy for "most improved" in his basic training class.  You wouldn't believe what he was like before he started.