Jack The Reluctant Test Pilot

With Molly gone to winter boarding, Doc has been moping around and just generally looking glum. This morning the woman went off to the human feed store and left us in the sun with our hay. Because there was a cold wind blowing, Jack was wearing his checked coat. And that gave Doc an idea. Doc's "ideas" invariably follow a tortuous path to an inevitable cataclysmic finale.

"Dood", Doc said to Jack. "I kin have ya outta that dork suit in no time". Jack wasn't convinced. He's quite proud of his new coat and said he'd have to think it over. What that means is that he will suck on one of his remaining teeth while falling into a reverie which then turns into a light doze. Doc is not noted for his patience, and while Jack was at the reverie stage, Doc grabbed the top of his blanket and suspended him in midair, like someone dangling on a rope under a rescue aircraft. Jack awoke with a start. "Lissen sonny", he said, "I never volunteered for the air farce, you set me down quick". Doc made some muffled noises and dropped him with a thud.

Jack was now sitting on his hindquarters with the blanket pulled over his head. There were exclamations of horror from inside the blanket but we couldn't quite make out what he was saying. I began berating Doc, reminding him that Jack wasn't some sort of elderly Flying Walenda to be spun around like a circus performer. With that, Doc grabbed the blanket once more and by dint of a series of violent jerks, caused Jack to slide out onto the snow like a newborn seal. Jack was both incensed and disoriented and went off to the run-in to have an attack of indignant squitters.

Doc swung the blanket around in circles over his head and when that grew old, threw it on the ground and began attacking it like a terrier. He did not realize that the woman had turned in the driveway and had seen the drama unfold in it's entirety. She sped up, shot past the house turn-off , beeped the beeper thing at him and screeched to a halt. We could hear her ranting before she opened the door. When the door flew open, she disembarked, followed by an avalance of spilled foodstuffs. She was an unbecoming shade of dark purple. Doc attempted a hasty retreat, which would have been flawless except that one of the straps from Jack's blanket was caught around his front leg. He galloped away, doing a demented Highland fling with the encumbered limb and eventually flicking off the offending blanket. Then he hid behind the barn. And the woman stomped off with the blanket.

There is always some sort of farce being played out around here. I just never know if I'll be a member of the audience or in the spotlight. I tried to comfort Jack by telling him the Bard of Avon had once sagely remarked that "all the world's a stage". "Don't know no Bart Haven", said Jack, "but I'm at a stage where I could do with considerable less ickcitement".