Dogs

Dogs love crutches. They think they're trees. You can imagine, right. And given that speed isn't in my toolbox at this moment in time, I've had to haul in the disinfectant. To be fair I probably would have needed industrial strength cleaner for them anyway. Perhaps if I had sat quietly in a corner with my knitting for the last three months they would be pristine. But I don't knit, I bake,and I am the world's worst patient. I can't sit still for longer than five minutes and was baying to be let out of hospital about twenty minutes after I came round from a five hour operation. My crutches have been the hapless recipients of chocolate drips, compost (yup, I weeded standing on one leg), tea, raspberries,icing sugar, extra virgin olive oil and vanilla essence. By now, they probably have salmonella. You can see why dogs would find them so irresistibly attractive. They're like catnip. This morning I spent a deliriously happy two hours playing with chocolate macaroon recipes before hobbling out on my daily constitutional. Dogs across the river valley walk set up an early Twilight Bark to let all their mates know that Father Dogmas had arrived, and within seconds I was surrounded. I'm not a dog person at all so this presents a challenge bigger than my last job interview. Luckily, past experience has made me resilient to all things that come out of dogs. I was 23 and pitching my company's services to a major multinational advertising agency when a dog, which had been sleeping peacefully in the corner of the meeting room all the way through my presentation, awoke, lumbered up to me, and puked. Right down my leg. I was speechless with shock - actually lost my voice - but the Creative Director was unflappable. Annabelle, she yelled out of the door, the dog's thrown up. Then she comes back to the table, sits herself back down, turns to me and says, where were we. I have dog puke trickling down my leg but with extraordinary presence of mind I pull myself together and begin talking through the price list, thinking to myself, it'll take me ten showers to get rid of the smell, and the skirt is going into the nearest bin. So you see, a bunch of canines weeing against one crutch and licking old chocolate off the other, while challenging, is at least something I have some preparation for. For years after the advertising agency experience all I wanted to do was forget it had ever happened. Who knew the experience would serve me well in later years. I should probably track down that Creative Director and tell her.