The same mistake

Summer! I have been so distracted. There are many drafts to finish, but I will start by posting one a day for the next three days. A general post now, then an On Photography post, followed by a Creative Spark.

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I was thinking about silly things we did as teenagers, which made me think about the idea of learning your lesson and not repeating the same mistake twice.

A silly thing first, something we tried a lot, more than most intelligent humans. But we were not yet fully formed.

The gang of five teenagers I was part of could be susceptible to untruths, especially if it might revolve around bravery or a competition. Young male stuff. One was that if you let a mosquito land on your skin, start to drink your blood, and you slowly pinched your skin around its proboscis, the needle, and squeezed tight, it wouldn’t be able to pull out, and instead would fill with so much blood it would explode. This must have seemed too good not to try, witnessing such a grotesque event on a small scale. Our pack of thirteen-year-olds tried it dozens of times on many camping trips. In each and every case the mosquito, after drinking so much—you could see your own blood through the translucent and enlarging abdomen—would pull out the stinger and fly away. And we would always itch a giant bump.

There was another myth that would have been tested many times, but was stopped for practical considerations. In high school my best friend said he heard you could put an egg in your hand, and if you aligned the long side ends against the bottom of your palm and your curled fingers, and squeezed as hard as you could, it wouldn’t break. My Mom, who liked my always-entertaining friend, lent the egg. Dave squeezed hard, grimacing, and seconds later the egg exploded yolk and white all over the kitchen.

And then there was a more intelligent animal, who learned a hard lesson just once.

Little Bear was a pretty mix of husky, shepherd, and retriever. We spent a few years together in a West-Central Wisconsin cabin. We were constant companions, and knew each other very well. When he smelled or heard something my senses were incapable of recognizing, that he needed to check out, he was clear. He went to the door, and sat.

I would let him out and off he went into the fields and woods close to the cabin. He never went far, and if I called he was back in a minute or two. It was his world. He made his rounds, reading his daily newspaper of sniffs, always hoping to chase the chipmunk up a tree, and spending extra time where something had peed, perhaps a deer, a bobcat, or coyote. This morning he really wanted to go, now.

An hour later I knew he was home when I heard him whimpering. Except for an occasional misstep onto a paw, I had never heard him whimper. I went outside quickly, and he was pushing his nose forward against the grass. I ran over, looked close, and he had a couple dozen porcupine quills sticking out all around his mouth, and a few embedded in the tender flesh of his nose. It was horrible to look at. I ran inside, and grabbed a pair of pliers. Cleverly designed for maximum impact, each quill has a microscopic, backward-facing barb, like a fish hook, so they would stay embedded, and really hurt when pulled out.

This sweet dog trusted me more than anyone, and with calm words I gently held his head against the ground with one hand while firmly pulling out the first quill. He cried a little, I took my hand off his head, and let him smell the quill. I gently pushed his head back down and he resigned himself to the ordeal.

So many minutes later, every quill I could see was out. I took my hand off his head, he rolled up but right away started rubbing his mouth against the ground. Confused I noticed he was drooling. A lot. I gently held down his head again, and with unwavering trust, opened his mouth. My heart sank, as there were another 10 quills piercing the soft flesh of the roof of his mouth, and two in his gums. I talked to him, loved him, and one by one pulled them out, taking time between each so he could recover, catch his breath. And so I could catch mine, and keep focus.

It seemed forever, but when the last porcupine quill was out, I let him go, and he exploded into a dance. He twirled and leapt, and licked me profusely. He went to his outdoor water bowl and drank deeply, the cool water must have felt so good. I sat on the old sofa on the deck overlooking the fallow field, relieved. He hopped up, laid down next to me, his head in my lap, and collapsed into a deep sleep.

There were more porcupines in our future, but he never made the same mistake.

Photograph ©Eddie Soloway