Bard called me yesterday with a story all Americans would love, a story of justice, perverted though it may be, a story of the (literal) underdog prevailing. When I answered the phone, he was so excited, he started in immediately.

“I’ve a story to tell you.”

“Oh, Bard, I’ve got peeps in my office—I’m going to have to call you back.”

“You’ll like this story, so you definitely need to call me back.”

“Oh? Does someone get kilt?” (which, for those of you not from these parts, is an acceptable, if not the preferred, conjugation of the verb “kill”).

“No, but there is an injury,” which thereby qualifies the story as being worthy of a return call.

“Is it an inappropriate injury?”

“Yes,” he hissed, thus urging the return call to the top of my list of things to do.

Now to get you up to speed on the characters of this story, there are, for the most part, just two: Ingmar and Wylie. Ingmar, according to Bard, “has banjo-eyes, considerable issues, and a probable amphetamine problem." Oh yes, and, on top of all these problems, he’s a poodle. Wylie, on the other hand, is a newly adopted sheltie, one who is fairly convinced (and perhaps rightfully so) that he’s now living in the confines of a poodle terrorist training camp.

When I called back, Bard began his story by framing it as that which ruined his plans for the afternoon of the Friday after Thanksgiving, albeit I think his actual words were something like “how others fucked up my day.”

It seems that, as is his habit, Ingmar the Poodle scaled the heights of the back of Bard’s sofa and lay there in wait for the next unassuming sheltie to come along, with that sheltie being the above-referenced Wylie. It seems, however, that Ingmar never for a second considered that, if the sheltie were to look in the sky and see a poodle dive-bombing his way, that said sheltie would do something as wholly unpredictable as…move…thereby causing said poodle to go kersplat on the floor. As it turns out, the sheltie did, indeed, behave in such a manner and avoided the poodle missile falling from the sky and, indeed, the poodle went kersplat on the floor…where he subsequently transformed into a quivering mass of curly whimpers.

Ahem.

Yes, it seems that Ingmar the Poodle had failed to read that final chapter in “The Poodle Kamikaze Training Manual,” the one that describes that kamikazes aren’t expected to fare so well when they actually...er...land. Perhaps he grew bored, perhaps he was handed the abridged version, but for now, I’m of the opinion that Wylie the Sheltie actually did some, um, censoring of that manual.

And this is how Bard’s afternoon plans were ruined as, Bard, dear, dear Bard, just like all of those hand-wringing mothers down at the courthouse who cry as to why their sweet little babies have to be locked up just because they robbed someone, hurt someone, or have proven themselves to be just general pains in the asses to the rest of us, ran to the rescue of his poodle. Yes, indeed, he scooped up Ingmar and raced him to the vet to discover that his precious little terrorist had thrown out his back. That’s right—the poodle had thrown out his back.

Now I am not sure if he was able to take the dog to his regular vet and I certainly hope he was because Bard and I absolutely agree that “emergency” vet clinics are designed with the sole premise that it is somehow completely morally acceptable to charge you for your guilt. Thus, when the vet walks in and raises his eyebrows up to his hairline, tucks his chin into his chest, looks at you over the tops of his glasses and says, “you mean to tell me that you let your dog jump off of your furniture?,” the personal judgment of you and your entire household is, indeed, a built-in charge, not-so-cleverly disguised on your ridiculously itemized bill as something like “supplies” or “canine care.”

Just the same, with a bill for over $300 for three days of, er, care, Ingmar returned from his chiropractic veterinary visit a furry balloon of a dog pumped up with steroids. And the sheltie underground press is surely abuzz with the news of the young underdog outwitting the flying poodle.