The Psychic

I think Nicky has psychic powers. He seems to see things that aren’t there. We were outside on the deck one day. All of a sudden, he sat, and became very alert and started this guttural, warbling, almost human sound. Clearly, noises that shouldn’t be coming from a dog. He was staring intensely at a spot on the deck railing and wagging his tail so fast the end of it was a blur. He kept looking at me then back to the spot and back at me like he was saying "Don’t you see it? Cmon, get over here and do something. Don’t just stand there and look at me like I'm crazy” As I walked towards him, his excitement level kept going up, like I was gonna ‘help’ him with whatever it was he saw there. It was rather unnerving. It was as if there was a squirrel in a Harlem Globetrotters jersey spinning a squirrel sized basketball on its paw right there on the deck railing. After thinking that maybe he was crazy, I finally convinced him there was nothing there (that I could see). Coincidentally or not, he seemed to lose interest and disappeared into the cool darkness of the garage so he could lie down on the chilled cement floor.

One night I was working in the garage, installing a ceiling rack for the 7’ step ladder. It consisted of two 10” 2x4s bracketed to the ceiling studs, a 30” 3/8” threaded rod secured through the 2x4s with flat washers and 11/16” hex nuts. Before threading on the nuts, I slipped a length of larger diameter PVC electrical conduit over the rod to allow the ladder to “roll” on and off the rack when I take it down or put it up. As is my usual style, I was dropping things, misplacing things, cant find my glasses because they’re on top of my head and generally acting like a stroke patient with a hammer duct taped to his forearm. I was at the point where I was threading the nuts onto the rod. Two on, two to go. My left hand apparently started taking commands from the reptilian part of my brain and since its difficult at best to thread a nut with one’s flipper, I dropped it. I looked around on the floor, in the mug of Bass Ale on the table, and in the tool box. Nada. So I rued the day I was born and continued to work, figuring I would go get another one at chez Hoe Depo.

All of a sudden, Nicky came over all crystal meth alert. He went straight to a short plastic drum off in the corner I put lumber scraps in. It was just short enough for him to get his nose over the edge. He started doing a "theres a squirrel in the barrel" act and wagging his tail fast enough to be the first K9VTOL registered with the FAA. He kept looking up at me, on the ladder with the "ain't ya gonna help?" expression on his face I'd come to know. I just kept on working, I needed to finish the rack so I could move on to installing window film to my Grand Cherokee and get it done before the sun came up.

I now had the two hex nuts on the rod, on both sides of the 2x4 on the right and on the left I had the remaining hex nut on the inside and I used a small clamp to keep that side from coming off. Nicky was starting to really whip himself into a froth. He was crooning like a bad Dean Martin impersonator at a Rat Pack tribute down at the local strip mall. It was time to intervene. I got down and went over to Nicky and his mysterious can o' sticks. "What?" I said. In high alert status situations, that always buries the needle on his excitement meter in the red. Ramp it up. He looked at me, then in the can. Me, can, me, can. So I upended the can and dumped all the scraps on the garage floor. He became a Certified Search and Rescue Dog and went into action. He began to paw at the pile of scraps with keen attention. More like something just below panic. He started that strange half human warbling thing again. When he got to a deck railing baluster with some tooth marks in it he stopped digging and sniffed it. He picked it up, turned and started to walk away. After a few steps, he dropped it and turned back to the pile and began to dig furiously once again. After about 5 minutes of this he suddenly seemed to lose interest and went to find my latest pair of Nike sunglasses to transform into a barely identifiable lump of plastic.

I went back to my ladder rack contraption and loaded the ladder up on to it. Then I started to clean up the usual cluttered chaos that I was so skilled at creating. The last chore was to put all that lumber scrap back into the bin. I scooped up most of it in one armload, leaving a couple pieces on the floor. I picked up the two last pieces and there on the floor was the hex nut that had fallen into the bin. Now you can decide if it was just coincidence that Nicky was so fixated on that bin and its contents or if he somehow knew that chunk of metal I dropped and couldn’t find was in there…