A scrum with my dog over cat food put football injuries into perspective | Opinion
Injuries in football are unfortunate, especially when they happen on a play that draws a penalty flag. Consider the running back who blows out his knee on a scamper into the end zone, only to learn that his offensive lineman was flagged for a holding penalty. The play was all for naught, but the season-ending injury remains.
I didn’t fully appreciate the injustice of this unfortunate turn of events until I suffered a similarly injurious fate in an ultimately worthless effort. The late-hit laid upon me was not delivered on the gridiron by a truculent linebacker, but in the kitchen by my spirited mini Bernedoodle, Sugaree. In matters of canine discipline, Sugaree was nobody’s pre-season All-American.
It was a crisp and beautiful autumn Saturday morning on the back porch of my football-crazed home. Borrowing from English poet Robert Browning, ESPN’s College GameDay was on the television, God was in his heaven and all was right with the world. I drew in a breath of fresh North Carolina air, stepped inside and sequestered Sugaree in the study so my two cats, Daisy and Ringo, could hope to enjoy their breakfast in peace.
Alas, savvy Sugaree is no late-round rookie. She quietly nudged open the French doors of her holding cell and, like a crafty safety lurking in my blind spot, read my eyes as I, the careless option-quarterback, pitched nourishment to my kitties. Sugaree then closed in on the defenseless felines, pounced and quickly made a dog’s breakfast of my cats’ breakfast.
I don’t care for bullies, and this brazen indignity offended my sense of justice. I lunged from the kitchen table toward my rapacious rover in hopes of wresting the fishy tin from her maw. Having failed to wrap up on the tackle, I tried to strip the puree free with my right hand while bringing the dog down by contact with my left. I failed on both counts.
Sugaree wriggled away and absconded with the grub, strutting jauntily toward her version of the end zone in a jentacular pick-six. Back at the kitchen table, I caught my breath and began to assess where the play broke down. Reaching for my still-warm cup of coffee, I noticed something odd about my ring finger.
The digit hadn’t rejoined the defensive huddle with the rest on my left hand. The distal phalanx hung limp in a most unnatural if not illegal formation. Sometime during the scuffle over cat food with my dog, a tendon ruptured.
The injury was unsightly, but the full and insulting futility only sank in when I gazed at Ringo. The cat, missing only his coffee and morning paper, was serenely eating the dog food out of Sugaree’s dish. Unbeknownst to me, my cat and dog have an arrangement and, like reciprocal supper club members, routinely eat each other’s food. Now I’m left in a finger-splint for eight weeks, hoping to avoid surgery, all for trying to right a situation my pets did not consider a wrong.
As the college football season progresses, I pray with a newfound empathy that all athletes avoid serious injury. Especially when there is a flag on the play.
Mike Kerrigan is an attorney in Charlotte and a regular contributor to the opinion pages.
