Monday, January 29, 2007

Fleeing feet and flying fur

We're only one month into the new year, and I'm already predicting that 2007 will be remembered as The Year That My House Fell Apart. The most recent item on a growing list is my desk (not the computer desk, the one that faces it, with my chair in the middle so I can swivel from one desk to the other).

I bought the desk about five or six years ago and assembled it myself--apparently not very well. Each side of the desk has two drawers, supported between the ends of the desk and wooden panels screwed to the desk top. Last week I opened the top left drawer and took out one item. I closed the drawer, and it immediately fell down onto the bottom drawer. I pulled both drawers out to get a closer look and found that the screws have pulled loose and are probably stripped.

I figured out a way to fix it, so on Sunday afternoon I went to The Home Depot, expecting to come home with what I needed and finish the job. Unfortunately, although the store was open, they must have had a fire drill or something, because the only employees I could find in the whole place were at the checkout registers. I put miles on my Crocs before I gave up and came on home.

All of which is just backstory for the main point of this whole entry: You'd be amazed at how fast a blind dog can move when the situation requires it.

Butch tends to "vacuum" the floor and the furniture all around me after I eat something (although I am NOT that messy). A few minutes ago I had a piece of angelfood cake right here at my computer, and I shared a couple of bites with Butch and Kadi. When the cake was gone, Butch began sniffing inch-by-inch on the floor around me. In the process, he stuck his head into the space where the missing drawers should be, hit the suspended wooden panel, and knocked the whole thing down.

I turned around as soon as I heard the crash behind me, and all I saw was Butch's blond rear-end skedaddling into the kitchen. My laughter eventually brought him back to the scene of the crime. Tail wagging, he approached the desk tentatively, and sniffed around for several minutes. He appeared to be either a) trying to figure out what had happened to make the big noise, or b) continuing his search for crumbs.

My money would be on the cake crumbs.

8 comments:

  1. Butch sounds like a sweetheart, poor guy, though we would have laughed right with you! good luck on fixing the desk!

    keepers

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  2. Oh my, poor Butch to have such a rude crash come down on him.

    One of the things I never really liked about being single was having to fix things around the house myself. I don't envy you this.

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  3. Poor Butch. Mabel doesn't like loud crashes and she can see. I can't imagine how scared your sweet boy must have been!

    I'm with you on the cake crumbs! Mabel snifs the floor when I KNOW I've dropped nothing... I call it wishful sniffing.

    Kisses to Butch!!

    Holly

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  4. Hi, Keepers. Butch IS a sweetheart...and he did clumsy things like this even before he lost his eyesight, so I don't feel guilty for laughing at him. I'm glad you saw the humor, too.

    Annie, the ONLY thing I don't enjoy about living alone is my lack of fix-it skills. Independence has always been of the utmost importance to me, and things like this always remind me I'm not as independent as I'd like to be.

    Holly, Butch was scared, but he kept his wits about him. He had to make his way around Kadi (who was lying on the floor) and the desk, then navigate about 15 feet around the book shelves, then turn left into the kitchen--and he did it in record time.

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  5. I'm glad to hear that the trauma didn't scar him for life and he came right back to vacuuming!

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  6. Oh, Janet, now that Butch's nose is his primary source of stimulation, no crumb remains unsniffed. It's his full-time job, and he takes it very seriously.

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  7. I would have flown as fast as poor Butch - he must have been so scared! A friend of mine emailed that her SINK fell yesterday, straight down through the cabinet. Must be the day for falling things, LOL.

    I think this might be a good time for Super SIL to make an appearance!

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  8. Say the title real fast four times. Tongue-twister!

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