Glass Puppies

copyright 2005 Dale Hansen - no reproduction without permission

We have a baker’s rack made of wrought iron in our kitchen. It has little curlicues on the feet and the very top. It has a wooden table top about halfway up the length and then two more shelves (made of iron tubes) across the top.

I had gotten a “white elephant” Christmas gift from work - a bottle of oil marinating red peppers and jalapenos. I kept this potentially lethal oil on the wooden top of the rack. It seemed the perfect place for it; we had three glass bottles on that surface already. These held little bits of pasta that were more for looking at than anything practical.

On this same tabletop was our glass punchbowl – complete with 12 little glass punch-cups. On the first shelf above this were three old-fashioned style glass cookie/dry goods containers (like you can still get in Wal-Mart). These were filled with various items such as Kool-aid mix, packets of spices and so on.

The crown of this collection was the five-gallon glass jar that sat on the very top self. It held dog biscuits and we thought that keeping it six foot off of the ground would ensure that no puppies tried to bother it.

We had this arraignment for a couple of years, and it seemed to work out fine.

Then we got a new dog.

While my wife and I were busily watching TV, and the dogs were doing whatever dogs do when you’re not watching them, we heard a crash from in the kitchen. Unfortunate and messy, but it sometimes happens when dogs try to sniff the counter. The only thing to do is to clean it up quickly, before someone gets cut.

Before I could jump up from my chair, another shattering of glass came from the kitchen. Our new puppy had caught her collar on the curlicued feet of the rack and in the logic of very young puppies; she thought the best way to extricate herself from her restraint was by pulling hard.

When that failed to yield any results, she pulled harder.

She began sliding this large, iron baker’s rack across the floor. Each tug she gave toppled another piece of heavy glass to the floor where it exploded inches from her face. Every time another glass depth charge blew up in front of her, she panicked and pulled harder.

All the little glass bottles, save one, detonated on the floor as the rack was tugged to the center of the kitchen.

The five-gallon massive jar with the glass lid was one of the first to go. Before it came down, several of the little punchbowl glasses tried to break its fall. Instead, we now had delicate little shards of glass mingling with the gigantic shell of the great glass jar.

BOOM! When it hit, you could hear it throughout the house. Two of the old-fashioned cookie jars quickly followed.

By the time I could get to the little dog, we had lost all the glass on the rack save two small jars and - oddly- the punchbowl itself.

She had at least five pounds of glass shatter literally inches in front of her face. Glass had flown the entire length and width of my kitchen, yet our little puppy was completely unharmed.

It would seem God looks after drunks, fools, and puppies.
After I got her unhooked and set her in my wife’s lap, I started to clean up.
Shattered glass shards covered in a mix of Kool-Aid powder, pasta, pepper soaked oil and a few more pungent spices, with just enough dog biscuit pieces and powder to make it the consistency of mud.

I know we got off lucky.

She was completely unharmed.

And it wasn’t as bad as the dog who ate a D-cell battery - and a flea collar.

… but I digress….