Only at My House...

People often ask me if what I write here is true. I promise, I'm not motivated enough to make this crap up.

We were spending a quiet evening at home watching a crappy movie we had rented (The Jumper thumbs down), and Mrs Ozzy gets up off the couch and scoots the coffee table out a little. I had Poco (little dog) in my lap and Icee (big dog) was at our feet. Somehow, as she scoots the table out Icee catches his leg in the curled up foot of the coffee table. He starts yelping, twisting himself around, and I look down and he has somehow gotten his leg awkwardly wedged into the table. I feebly try to get him into the right position to free him, but no luck.

This looks very BAD.

He calms down relatively quickly, but he is hopelessly stuck. I tell Mrs Ozzy to call 911 and tell them to send the fire dept. On her way to the phone, she bumps the table and the puppy goes nuts with pain. The dispatcher tells her they will call animal control, but they can't dispatch the fire dept for a non human emergency. She said, "forget it" and hung up. I tell Ozzy Jr. to go across the ditch and get a neighbor that I'm sure has the tools to cut him out. Meanwhile Mrs. Ozzy starts calling other neighbors to come down.

As the first neighbors start to arrive a policeman comes by. Apparently, the police have to be dispatched every time you call 911. He says he'll stay and help. So, John (a neighbor) suggests taking the table top off then using a hacksaw to cut the table leg off. I tell him where the screw drivers are, and I go get my trusty angle grinder. I think, "screw a hacksaw." Meanwhile, John's wife Jody poured oil on the spot to see if there was a way to slide it out. No dice. So, John gets the table top off in pretty short order. There are several points that have to be cut through to get this done and I start with the smallest. 3/4 of the way through, as sparks are flying and the dog is going nuts, I was persuaded to stop. We used the hacksaw to finish the cut. We had at least 4 or 5 cuts to go. I was sweating, and my livingroom smelled like dog crap.

The policeman very adroitly then called the fire dept. They were there in 5 minutes. I guess they believed him more than us. They used the jaws of life to cut the leg off my coffee table. (I can tell Mrs. Ozzy is digging this well built fire fighter). At the suggestion of the policeman, I taped Icee's mouth shut for the protection of everyone. The policeman, fireman, and the fire captain carried him to the car with the coffee table leg in tow. As we put him in the back of Mrs Ozzy's car the table leg came lose. He was stuck in the table leg for about an hour.

Special thanks to our neighbors, the Smyrna Police and Fire Depts.