The Public Eye
Sometime in the early morning hours, I shuffled downstairs to the kitchen, groped for and located the coffeemaker, went to the cabinet to get a mug, tripped on the dogs' water bowl, caught my chin on the edge of the counter on the way down, woke up to the sound of my own teeth clicking and thus became a statistic.
In a report released last week, the Center for Disease Control said accidents involving household pets cause 86,000 trips to the emergency room each year.
This is big news. Although I once knew a cocker spaniel named Buster that had 86,000 accidents, I didn't know Buster might also have been thinking, "No fetch today? I'll break your leg, pal."
It's a fact that more people go to the emergency room after tripping over their dogs and cats than they do because of accidental gunshot wounds.
This means we might be safer leaving our guns on the living room floor and locking Spike, Foo-Foo, Weenie- Boy and Trixie in the gun cabinet. Besides, the difference between guns and furry pets is that guns do not discharge unless they are loaded and someone touches them. Dogs and cats, on the other hand, are always loaded with something and will discharge it whenever they feel like it.
Considering the dangers of pet ownership, it's only a matter of time before every pet purchased or adopted will be required to carry a sticker from the Surgeon General — "Warning: in addition to the health hazards associated with hairball hacking, whoopsies, no-nos and 'oooh, that's gross,' pets may cause you to fall and break something you would just as soon have in working order."
And we all know what the government will do next to ensure our safety: require pet owners to wear helmets.
Every time someone breaks, bruises or bends something, the first question seems to be, "Would wearing a helmet have prevented this?"
"Doctor, I tripped over Mr. Snookums and broke something."
"Were you wearing a helmet?"
"Yes, but what I broke, doctor, won't hold a helmet."
"Did you think about whacking Mr. Snookums with your helmet to get him out of the way?"
"Mr. Snookums is a parakeet."
