Why not? - English

14-04 Snap and Spot

After Krystyna and Wallaby2 had landed safely back on the mountain rescue center's heliport and we had changed, Lizzie, to my astonishment, was still standing down in the yard and seemed to be waiting for something while she praised Radar and took off a bandage on his paw she must have put it on him to pass the time.

"Are you still waiting for someone, Lizzie?" I greeted her after we had changed to go back to the station. Now that Tom was back from his trip with the Pioneers, we were no longer needed up here.

"Of course. For you," Lizzie remarked, standing up to put a hand on her hip and look at us as if it was the most logical thing in the world. "After Krystyna has shown you so well how easy it is to put a bandage on to Radar, you should have tried to put on a bandage successfully at least once, right?" she then stated and I suspected that it would be a long evening. I was able to get over the planned dinner with Penny and go to bed early then, how we had actually planned it for today. Since Penny and I had gotten closer, it had been hard to keep our hands off each other, even though we kept telling each other that it served a greater purpose - our baby, which we both hoped for so much. I certainly wouldn't complain, but the nights have been short lately because of it and it's slowly starting to affect our lives outside of our personal lives. The fact that I couldn't even put a bandage on Radar probably spoke for this. In the last few days, I've been making little mistakes like this all the time because my concentration was so tired. My next day off wouldn't be for a few days. I didn't know if I could go on for so long on so little sleep. "Are you starting, Sam?" Lizzie snapped me out of my thoughts and threw me a bandage at the same time. I was so surprised that it slipped out of my hand three times before I could get a grip on it - another example of how unfocused I was due to the lack of sleep and Lizzie, in contrast to Elvis, was less amused and more skeptical about it. I couldn't blame her. I wasn't normally like that. I just hoped I could get this under control before anyone else realized what was really going on.

"Of course, Lizzie," I covered up my mistake and tried to remain as calm as possible while I walked towards Radar, who was already looking at me as if he was expecting a lot of fun. Sometimes this dog was scary to me because it often seemed as if he was doing the nonsense that he used to trick me with on purpose.

Maybe he'd just been around Penny too much lately and he was seeing how much fun she was having teasing me?

I crouched down in front of Radar, who now sat down and tilted his head to watch as I unpacked the bandage package.

"So, Radar, let's bandage your paw. It's all good, but we have to practice because we want to help you if something really happens to you...what?!" I froze as Radar grabbed one end of the bandage I had just unwound and ripped everything out of my hand. The roll wound up further and further while the Dalmatian jumped around me as if I were a mummy that needed to be wrapped. "Radar! NO!" I shouted over and over again, trying to catch the dog that jumped around me. When I finally got hold of him by the collar, he changed direction and jumped away - still with one end of the gauze bandage in his mouth and brought me down like a lumberjack would an old tree because he had completely wrapped up my legs.

I gasped as I hit the ground and rolled over onto my back to the laughter of my colleagues when Radar came back, dropped the end of the bandage on my chest and licked my cheek.

"So if you ask me, Radar is very good at applying bandages, Lizzie!" Elvis remarked with a chuckle and I rolled my eyes as I sat up and tried to peel myself off the bandages around my legs.

"I have to agree with you, Elvis," Lizzie agreed, suddenly standing next to me and offering me her hand to help me up. I gratefully accepted the offer. "It seems to me that you're pretty out of your depth today!" Lizzie said with a smile and I looked at Elvis, who was already engrossed in a conversation with Krystyna.