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Paroemia (pa-ri’-mi-a): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, gnome, maxim, proverb, and sententia.

As I looked at the scar across my left hand and my permanently crossed fingers, I thought of the saying “Barking dogs don’t bite.” It was a little multi-colored mutt about the size of a muskrat. It was barking. I reached down to pet her and she tore into my hand. She would not let go. She just looked at me a growled, with my hand in a vise grip. After a half-hour, I was starting to get really worried. That’s when my friend called 911. He had a hard time convincing the dispatcher to send help. It wasn’t their typical fare—gunshot wound, flipped over SUV, choking Grandpa, guzzling Clorox, poked out eye, etc. This was different.

Soon, we heard the siren of the approaching ambulance. It squealed to a stop and the 2 EMTS burst through the front door. They could’ve just turned the doorknob, but they trained to smash through doors, to save time in “entering premises.” One of the EMTS tried not to laughs when he saw the dog hanging from my hand. He said, “Jeez, I didn’t think dogs came that little. He looks like a puppy.” I said, “Yeah, a puppy that’s been grinding away at my hand for the past hour. Where the hell have you been?” He said, “We were actually saving a women’s life. She was having trouble finding a towel to dry off with after her shower. We stopped Sear’s along the way and commandeered a bath towel. We got to her condo just in time to dry her off and keep her from slipping on the wet floor and dying. Then, we came here to deal with your joke bite.” He pulled a Jack out of his bag. The idea was to use the Jack to separate the dog’s jaws. It didn’t work. They couldn’t fit the Jack in the dog’s mouth. Then, they tried doggie treats. Didn’t work. Then, one of the EMTS said: “We’re gonna have to anesthetize the dog.” I yelled “Why the hell didn’t you do that in the first place?” “It’s called ‘triage.’ We start with the least effective treatment and work our way up. It case of the dog, if anesthesia does not work, the next step is to shoot it out in the yard. Don’t worry, the “euthanizer” has a silencer so your neighbors won’t be alarmed by the gunshot.”

The dog’s owner (my little sister) went berserk. She grabbed the dog, with my hand still attached, and hugged it to her. She was not going to let go. She swore they’d have to drag her out into the yard and shoot her too—she would die alongside Midgy. I was now a a car on a pain train. I was the locomotive. Midge was a passenger car, and my little sister was the caboose. I just wanted to leave the station—uncoupled from Midgy! it was a terrible analogy, but it worked for me under the circumstances.

It was time to inject Midgy. The needle was big, the dog was small—even though I was in pain, I had trepidations. In went the needle and Midgy went limp! I pulled my bleeding hand out of her mouth and literally jumped for joy. After seeing my ripped up hand, the EMTs gave me a shot of morphine for the pain. Meanwhile, Midgy was showing no signs of life. I did not want to be there when she kept not showing signs of life. However, I saw Midgy’s leg twitch as I went out the door, I hoped it was a sign of life. I could barely walk and had encased my wounded hand in a Wegman’s plastic bag so it wouldn’t drip on the floor. My girlfriend helped me to the car and we headed to the hospital to get me stitched up. As we entered the Emergency Room, the security guard asked me if the plastic bag was recyclable. I said I didn’t know. He said: “Ok. Sir, please remove the plastic bag. You may replace it with this paper bag. Don’t worry. There’s no charge.”

I was hoping this wouldn’t be like my last visit when I had a gallstone that could not have been more painful, but the doctors were concerned I was faking it because I wasn’t crying. Instead, I rolled around on the floor moaning while I was interviewed by a policeman from the narcotics division under the assumption that i was a drug addict faking a gallstone so I could get a fix. It was hell. I squeezed out a tear after 20 minutes and the interview was terminated. I got my painkiller.

Now, already high on morphine, I was led to my “outpatient” stitchers to get my hand fixed.

I walked through the door and there was a teen-aged boy sitting there in a Boy Scout uniform. The doctor told me his name was Billy Jackson and that Billy was 16 and was working on his First Aid merit badge. The doctor said, “He’ll sew you right up!” After the doctor helped him thread the needle, we were ready to go. Billy sprayed my hand with Lidocaine and jammed the needle in. I was so drugged up that I felt nothing at all. After he finished, Billy told me to keep it dry—to put it in a recyclable plastic bag when I took a shower.

I’m suing my little sister for what her dog did to me. She has insurance, so it is no big deal. I should probably sue Billy too—his stitch-job left my index finger and middle finger permanently crossed. I frequently get accused of insincerity when I make promises and people see my crossed fingers. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll go after Billy too. The Boy Scouts probably have some kind of merit badge insurance.

I’d like to say, “All’s well that ends well,” but I can’t. My poor little sister has started drinking. The 2 EMTs were convicted of burglary for stealing from unconscious victims. Billy was caught pilfering narcotics from the hospital, Midgy had puppies.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

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