No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

A few days ago, Dr. G'ovich brightened my day with a very entertaining (and embarrassing) story which it's not my place to tell. So, to return the favor, here's one of his favorite embarrassing stories about me . . . or, one of the most recent, at least.


Back in April there was one of those rare occurrences where my planned trip down to visit Clan Stoneheart coincided with a visit from Clan G'ovich. Coronela, Pooh, and I met up with Doc and company, and we wound up taking the kids to a local park with an interesting gimmick; water water everywhere, nor any drop to drink!



One of the most entertaining features at the park is a pole with several buckets mounted at the top with water spouts pouring into them. Once the buckets fill up to a certain point, they tip over, drenching whoever happens to be roaming underneath at the time.



Think you know where this is going?

Think again.

The source of my embarrassing moment did tie in to the aforementioned buckets o' water. Another one of the sources can be seen in the picture below.



Pay special attention to the girl on the right side of the picture who is being pushed towards the water. Pay extra special attention to the little furry thing crooked under her right arm. That would be her dog, and the final piece of our puzzle.

We had been at the park for a bit, and Pooh, Coronela, Rocket and I were sitting on the ground watching the kids running around, when the scene from above was recreated, only this time the girl and her dog were shoved under the (you guessed it) buckets. The bucket filled, the water fell, the girl got drenched, and the dog . . . the dog ran for its life.

Right past us.

Now, I have no idea what possessed me at that moment; maybe I was momentarily in contact with the Earth-K Captain Neurotic, and thus overwhelmed by his sense of duty; maybe I was trying to make up for thinking such bad thoughts about CHARLEY lo those many years ago; maybe I'm just a dumbass. Whatever the reason, without pausing to think about it (obviously), I was up and running after the AWOL pooch.

Man, was that thing speedy; or maybe I was just slow; probably a bit of both. As I tore after the thing I could tell it was starting to pull away, and if I didn't do something fast, it would be gone, so I, in my infinite wisdom, made a grab for the leash, and . . . have I mentioned before that I'm not the most coordinated of Cap'ns? And as such, I should have known that running as fast as I can, combined with bending over and reaching for a quickly moving item on the ground, was not going to end well. Sure enough, I missed the leash, overbalanced, and went flying for an instant, before crashing down into the ground, hard.

The Doc, who had just happened to be returning from wandering around taking pictures at the time, got to witness the side view of my maneuver; apparently with my arm outstretched and feet removed from the ground, I briefly resembled Super-Todd . . . before the whole "crashing down into the ground, hard" thing ruined the illusion. The Doc was quite saddened not to have captured my graceful feat on film, and has tried numerous times to convince me to re-enact the scene for posterity's sake; so far, I have declined.

Of course, the really fun capper to the story (beyond the scrapes, bruises, and inability to take a deep breath for a month without experiencing intense pain) is that the little dog was running towards a section of the park from which there was no way for it to escape without heading back towards us, so there was no need for my attempted heroics in the first place . . . a fact that the Doc was kind enough to point out to me later.

That’s what friends are for, right?