The Scare

Lose the Ammo
The third installment in the Nicky’s Nine series

A quiet Sunday evening. Until I couldn’t find my signed copy of American Psycho. God, I hate that, I just wanna go out and, well, nevermind. For weeks, I couldn’t turn around without tripping over it. Now, I needed it and apparently it had found that annoyingly troublesome wormhole in my office. Tossing the place seemed appropriate. I threw a few things and started dumping drawers. In my peripheral vision, I saw Java give Nicky that “oh brother, he’s going off again” look. Whatever. Ah, here it is. Much better.

A short time later, I notice Nicky sniffing around on the floor where the contents of one of the drawers was dumped. That’s when I realized he was interested in several .357 magnum Black Talon rounds lying there on the carpet. “GET!”, “GO ON!” I said in a raised voice as I rolled my chair back from the desk. I shooed him away and leaned over and scooped them up. Instinctively, I counted them. One, two, three, four…Four. Only four. Then I remembered that the friend that had given them to me only gave me five. Ok, so where is the fifth one? No. That cant be. Nicky didn’t just eat it, did he? Nah.

Take tennis balls for example. I cant take my eyes off of Java when he has one and he stops running around. First, he just looks at me while he holds the ball in his jaws and clenches and releases. Clench/release. Clench/release. All the while I can hear the air hiss out of it and then rush back in. Hiss/rush. Hiss/rush. Oblivious to what sounds like strong opposition from the tennis ball, he lays down, his eyes glaze over and he becomes The Ball Terminator. As the endorphins pump through his body, he decides he’s hungry and gee, wouldn’t a tennis ball make a tasty snack? That’s when I must relieve him of the object of his pleasure. Otherwise, I’ll be woken up in the middle of the night by the awful retching noises he makes when its time for a good case of Wilson’s revenge.

Nicky, on one of the other paws, can do some serious yellow shredding himself. But the key difference is he wont eat the pieces. Just makes a neat little pile on the carpet between his paws, very fastidious indeed. If I were a surgeon and had time to kill and a lot of glue, I could sew that tennis ball back together, missing nary a piece. I’ve found initially unrecognizable lumps of plastic on the floor. As I inspect it, I think “Well, I hope that wasn’t important.” Later, when I’ve figured out what it used to be, I notice its all there in its entirety, just in a different shape.

As I got to thinking about it as I’ve been known to do, I began to get a little paranoid. What if? What if? WHAT IF? Holy shit, what if he did swallow it? Oh My God. The thought of Nicky exploding was more than I could bear. It was as terrifying as it was far fetched. But it was as persuable as the chances of it were infinitesimal. I called the 24 hour emergency vet clinic I had dealt with when Java caught a face full of skunk a few years back. The tech told me that certain metals are poisonous to dogs and are routinely removed surgically. But it was the visual of a dog (no, not one of mine) friggin blowing up that was working on causing me to become unhinged. The display on my freak meter was starting to resemble the threat board at NORAD at DEFCON 1. Wait! I can defuse the whole thing if I can just find .357 #5. I began to re-toss the office. I started to take things out of the drawer just below the one that started this mess. The stapler, my late Father’s Harvard ring, and a full speed loader for the now infamous .357 Colt Python. The contents of the drawer became a pile on the floor. #5 was still MIA. The pile became contents again. 20 minutes of “redecorating” the office produced no stray Black Talons.

So, of we go, into the night. It was a quarter past 12 when we got to the pet ER. Thrilled that he and I were going somewhere, just the two of us, having left Java sprawled out on the bed at home, Nicky jumped out of the car with his tail all aflutter and the “OK, now what, ha, ha?” look on his face. We were the only ones in the waiting room. I felt more than just a little stupid when I walked up to the counter and said “Ah, I think my dog may have ingested some live ammunition.” I felt a little better when I saw the card on the counter that read “Feeling more than just a little stupid telling us what happened to your pet? Don’t. Rest assured, someone else has done something even stupider.”

Thankfully, as was my first impression, Nicky was out of ammo. Oh, the relief! I hope any future visits to the ER are as positive an experience as this one was. A few days later I was pondering the location of the mysterious missing fifth round. I was going over the events when it dawned on me. I opened the lower drawer and reached for the speed loader I had removed while taking inventory that day. Yes, it was full, but there were five standard rounds and one Black Talon! So, that means it was there the whole time and I actually held it in my hand, twice. Jeez! Anyway, that was the best $275 I ever put a match to.