Tie A Rope To His Foot

My father used to amuse himself in some unique ways, most of which ended up making my mom mad in some form or fashion.  The cold weather we recently experienced reminded me of a particularly frigid, icy day my dad got a glint in his eye brought on by boredom.  It was a cold January day.  When I say cold, I mean colder than a snowman’s underpants.  It was also icy enough to cancel school and pretty much shut down the city.  In fact, it was so icy that you couldn’t walk outside without falling on your bottom.  I know this because I was in elementary school and tried several times to no avail.

            The situation started innocent enough, and make no mistake it became a full fledged situation faster than you can say frozen appendage.  My mom said, “How are we gonna get the dog outside to go to the bathroom?”  This was a logical question since everything was frozen and Dachshunds, being small dogs, don’t have large bladders.  For my father, this became an entertainment opportunity.

            “That’s easy, Momma,” he said, grabbing the door handle.  “You just open the door.”

            Now I don’t know if he saw the squirrel clinging for life to the frozen tree at the end of the drive or if it was just serendipity for his nefarious plan, but it didn’t go unnoticed by the dog as the door was opened.  She sprinted into the cold and by her second step, her tiny legs went four different directions causing her to skid on her belly like a hockey puck.  She scrambled to her feet, but she might as well have been wearing roller skates because each time, she flopped back onto her belly.  After a few minutes, she just laid there with a pitiful ‘come get me’ look on her face.  Dad’s grin had by this time begun to fade.  My mom’s yelling at him, on the other hand, was still going strong.

            After a few minutes, he looked at me and said, “I may have slightly miscalculated here, boy.”  I was thinking, well, duh, but kept my mouth shut because of what I feared would come next.  My silence did not help.

            “Looks like you’re gonna have to get her.”

            “Me?” I protested.  “You let her out.”

            “You’re gonna break your momma’s heart if you leave her out there,” he replied with a twinkle.  “Besides, I can’t stand up in this.”

            “Neither can I,” I pointed out.

            “You can slide on your belly,” he suggested.

            That did not sound like a good idea, and by this time, my mom was livid.  “You are going to trap my dog and now my son on the ice!”  She threw in a few other words I’m not gonna repeat before he smiled at her in that way that made her even angrier.

            “I’ll tie a rope to his foot.”

            And he did.