Crashes Stink

Crash 1/18/2011

7:40 AM on a frosty cold Tuesday. Ring! Ring! Ring! The barn phone was clamoring to be answered, but my hands were busy shoveling frozen horse crap from one of the stalls. Anyway, by the time I’d get to removing my gloves, running to the front of the barn to grab the phone that was perched atop a cabinet, and then stepping outside to get phone reception, the person would have hung up. The hell with it. I went back to using a metal shovel as a sledgehammer to break up a particularly wicked pile of manure that had frozen to the stall floor. Our dogs, Vida and Keltie, were roaming around the barn, scaring up barn cats to chase. I was so deep in my chores; it scared me when the barn door slammed open and my husband, George, stepped in. "Let's go! he shouted. "Meg's been in a car accident!"

The dogs were swirling around the barn door, excited from the elevated energy. What was I going to do with the dogs-- run them in the house-quick? The house seemed far and I sensed the tension in George’s quick steps as he jumped into the truck's driver seat and gunned the engine. My instinct was to throw the dogs in the waiting vehicle. Vida loves car rides so as soon as she saw the car door open, she jumped into the rear of the Suburban without hesitation. Keltie, Meg's border collie, was not so keen on traveling so I grabbed the smooth coated pup and threw her into the back of the truck. The back seats were down and the dogs crouched and gripped the rubber mats, trying to maintain their balance while the vehicle careened out of the driveway and onto the road.

"What happened?" I was still trying to catch my breath. My heart thudded under my winter jacket, already preparing itself for the worst. George rapidly fired out information-- machine gun style. "Meg called and said she was driving to school and was going to stop at the gas station to get some gum. When she turned off the highway and onto a side street, she slid into another vehicle stopped at a stop sign. I could barely understand her on the phone. She was crying so hard, I'm not even sure what street she turned onto. Dammit, the roads are icy. I hope she wasn't driving too fast." My mind tried to process the information as fast as George was saying it. The two of us chose to remain in worried silence and we concentrated on the road ahead, looking for "Fred", our army green colored Caravan that our sixteen-year old was allowed to drive. A quick cell phone to Meghan and we learned she was just up ahead.

"I see it! Fred's at the next corner. There's Meg! She's on the side of the road with the other driver!" Both George and I visibly relaxed now that we could see that she and the other car driver were uninjured. Thankfully, neither driver had passengers. As we turned the corner to park, a nasty smell assaulted my nose. "What's that smell?" "What smell?" George asked, as he brought the Suburban to a halt to the side of the road. "THAT smell. It smells like crap." I looked down at my snow boots. Did I step in horse apples and now the stuff was melting off my boots and riding the smell waves of the truck? Other than the usual crud, there were no new smelly hitchhikers on the soles of my shoes. My jacket made a sharp rustling noise against the slick bench seat as I twisted around to look in the back.

"Are you kidding me?" I yelled. "Are you KIDDING me?" In the far corner of the van was a large pile of fresh poo. Judging from the size of the poo, I had a good idea that it was produced by a 65 pound, Vida dog. Once the dogs realized that the poo had been discovered, they tried to bail from the back end by leaping over the back seats on to the front bench. “Off! Off!! GET OFF!!! I screamed, simultaneously shoving dog snouts back toward the rear.

Already frazzled, George and I got out of the car and inspected Meg and the car damage before talking to the other driver. I went back to our vehicle and tried to sort out how to get rid of the poo. Vida and Keltie watched me with downcast eyes from the opposite end of the trunk, their bodies pressed against the back of the rear seat. In a corner of the trunk was a plastic clamshell filled with stale and frozen cookies George received from a friend and had forgot to bring into the house. My eyes darted around to make sure no one was looking before I dumped the once edible load into the curb’s snow bank, save for one large cookie. With the saved snickerdoodle, I edged each poo log onto the cookie and chucked it into the clamshell, snapping the lid shut after the whole pile was in the container. Thank God the poo was compact and firm. Once the poo was contained, the dogs felt a little better about their space. Me too. My hope was that the stink would be contained.

I don’t know if I got used to the smell or if it really was trapped in the clamshell, but I was glad it was out of sight because the other driver ended up sitting in the rear seat, waiting for the police officer to arrive. Occasionally, I saw him peer over the seat, toward the trunk. I was hoping he was looking at the dogs and not picking up poo smell in the heater’s blasting air.

In the end, the police officer did his thing in writing out an accident report. We hobbled Fred home, literally, because the front wheel was canted and the driver door wouldn’t close. Meg stayed home for the day.

And the dogs? I’m just glad that it was one of them that had the poop scared out of them and not one of us.