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Dog in a Manger and Me in Swaddling Cloths

I wonder if other people just go to bed and sleep.

I don't.

Last night I saved a dog's life, and hurt my hand.

When I told Mari about it, this morning, she just laughed,
even when I showed her that I had bled.

I am going to assume that you might understand.

As you might understand, I found myself in a dairy barn--an old-fashioned dairy barn with wood stanchions and mangers, and old fashioned cows and a short-haired collie.  All of that has something to do with what is becoming a rather old-fashioned memory of Christmases Past; maybe even with swaddling cloths and Magi, and how I grew up.

In any case, the dog was young, and oddly contrary.  I was told to put her into the manger between two cows because that might quiet things.

When I did, the cow on the right reached her head over into the dog-in-the-manger, not so much to bring an old fable to mind, but to beat the dog to death.  Now you will understand that was impossible:  mangers are not built like that--to the contrary, they are designed precisely to obstruct it.  And cows are not giraffes:  they have short necks.  However, this cow--the cow on the right, was hammering the poor dog with her jawbone.  You know that cows have rather impressive jawbones, and the dog was being hammered.

I leaped to the rescue, swinging the side of my fist against the cow's head.  It hurt like hell!  And that is where things became a little confusing, because I realized that I had given the chest of drawers on my side of our bed a rather solid whack, and my hand hurt.  A lot!

I got back into bed, and felt my hand, just to put things into perspective, and I thought I felt blood.  There was no light, and no light switch on my side of the bed, so I pawed my way into the bathroom, and--in the dark--wrapped my hand in several feet of toilet paper, just to avoid bleeding on the pillow or sheet.  "Good job!", I thought.  "If an NFL lineman had a wrap like this, enclosed in plaster of paris, he would be a menace!"

In the morning, I found the paper on the floor, and showed Mari that there was, indeed, a spot of blood on it; just a small one, but it was there.  It matched a heroic wound on the side of my right hand; just a small one, but it was there.

I cannot actually say that I had saved the dog's life, because just at that moment, I had had to deal with the chest of drawers, and the wound, and all that.

Mari does not seem concerned.
About the dog, I mean.

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