Rumble in the Park: Kit vs. The Lamppost

It looks innocuous, no? Firmly ensconced there in the earth. Standing straight and tall. Lamp posting with the best of them, a paragon of lamp post-ness.

Oblivious of the hoi polloi around it; unaware of the humans, assorted dogs, ping pong players, that dude who does the daily crossword at the picnic tables every morning (if the weather allows); early risers digging around in the dirt and trimming or harvesting stuff in their allotments. What is all of that to a lamp post? Nothing. Literally beneath it.

So, there it was, on that fine day in late March; standing in the sunshine, thinking its lamp posty thoughts.

On that particular sunny weekday morning, Riley and I went to this lamp post’s park, as is our weekday wont.

She did her business, checked out the gardeners, ran through the sand in the playground and dug a few holes; ignored the ping pong players, barked a warning at the puzzler (who by now doesn’t even look up at her anymore, so inured is he to her: “Don’t come near me or my mom, okay!!? I’m warning you!!!”)

It was an unusual morning only because none of her dog friends were in the baseball field, and there were no strange dogs to make friends with, either.

I hadn’t brought a ball with me, because our before-work outings consist of toileting, running around in the outfield for 10 minutes with the other dogs, and then home again. Fifteen minutes of park time in all – and I have an alarm on my watch to ensure we stick to it!

But there being no dogs, Riley was desultorily sniffing the grass and looking a bit let down.

I had a minor injury (a wobbly or perhaps slightly torn meniscus); so I was supposed to be “taking it easy”; but decided to run with Riley anyway. She loves to chase, so I took off, with Riley gambolling after me; tongue hanging out, big smile!

We did a couple of zig-zag passes back and forth across the outfield, and I discovered that though I couldn’t run gracefully or well, I could do it without pain. Yay!

We got back to where we had started, and paused to play a bit of “Snappish” (a game in which I make grabby hands at her above her head and pretend growl, and she jumps at my hands and pretends to snap them.) She loves this game with her whole entire being, but we can’t play it for long, because in her enthusiasm, pretend snaps become real snaps pretty quickly.

We wrapped up Snappish, and I took off across the field again, this time at the fastest speed I could manage, and in a different direction, looking over my shoulder at her to see if she was chasing me. She was. With a giant smile on her face, seeming almost to be laughing, I was laughing too, when suddenly, !!!! T H U N K !!!!!

!!!!S P R O I N G!!!!!!

I found myself flying through the air, before being unceremoniously tossed on my back.

I was looking at Riley, so I can’t swear to it moving, but it definitely hadn’t been there before. Lamppost had thrown me into the air with great force! So much so, that I literally flew back a couple of feet!

I was lying on my back, trying to wrap my head around what had happened to me; and saw Lamppost indignantly shaking itself, making a *whongwhongwhong* sound as it vibrated with anger.

Like any being impervious to the doings of humans, it was enraged that I had interrupted its lamp-posty thoughts and made my presence known to it.

Getting over my shock, I hopped up quickly, and looked around, embarrassed, wondering if anyone had seen. I don’t know if anyone had, but no one was looking at me, which I took as a good sign.

Riley jumped up on me, pawing my belly, asking if I was okay. I kissed her head, told her I was fine (I wasn’t), and brushed myself off, all while watching Lamppost warily.

It went on standing there, pretending it hadn’t just maliciously slammed into me, so I went over to it, and gently tried to shake it with my left arm. (I couldn’t shake it with my right arm, as that arm didn’t seem to want to work very well). I wanted to see if the lamp post was unstable, or wobbly, or something. (I don’t know why I felt this was necessary, but it was.)

But Lamppost had gone back to pretending it was firmly stationary, and acting like I didn’t exist.

I limped home with Ri-Bi (my upper thigh, the side of my calf and ankle were also quite sore); and checked out my shoulder and upper chest in the mirror, because that area was really, really, (okay, REALLY) sore. I found the area was developing a very pretty but quite large, bright red bruise.

Having calmed down, and with some time to reflect, I came to the realization that when Lamppost stepped out to smash into me, I ran into it with my full body, like a freaking cartoon!

(Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that I had been looking back at Riley – if I had turned to look in front of me at that point, I would probably have broken glasses and a broken nose - and maybe even broken teeth [!] to show for my encounter with Lamppost.)

As it was, approximately three weeks later, I became cognizant that my upper chest wasn't "just bruised"; and that it shouldn’t hurt that much (or at all) when I breathed. And that's how I discovered that the force of the smash had broken my collarbone. :/

I looked at Lamppost warily from then on, waiting for it to make another move; but soon thereafter, Riley decided she didn’t like that greenspace anymore (was she suspicious too?); and we stopped going to the Lamppost’s outfield.

I know Lamppost has gone back to ignoring the humans and pretending we don’t exist, but I remember.

Round one to you, Lamppost! But I’ve got my eye on you!