This was the day to take Nick's stitches out. Perhaps this should have been a job for a veterinarian who has the proper tools. You know, a brightly lit table, hemostat clamps, teensie-weensie little scissors, professional help and all.

Oh, well, it takes about twelve bucks worth of gas to get to the vet's and back, plus eating up half an otherwise useful day, so Alan and I undertook to get 'er done ourselves.

First the table. The kid has been sleeping downstairs on his camping cot, because his room is cold as a polar bear's den in the winter. That made a table. Then some electical tape to help ease the pup's urge to rip our throats out if we got a little clumsy. Not that Nick is that type, but, hey, you never know.

Then tiny, hooked sewing scissors, a seam ripper and my little bitty electrician's needle-nose plyers.......now where the heck were they?

Oh, yeah, still in my tackle box out in the front hallway. They work the nuts for messing with lures and such and for taking hooks out of sunfish, which have the tiniest mouths of any fish I have ever seen.

I opened my big green box and the scent of rubber worms and WD-40, Skin-so-S0ft and slowly melting swimming grubs burst out. The smell of good summer afternoons on the lake, catching a bazillion rock bass or evenings swaying with the rocking of the boat as we waited for those huge rainbow trout to suck up a worm and begin the battle.

It fired me right up for the task of removing those little black knots of thread from little Nickie's back knees. He was such a good boy, just lay there thumping his hard black tail on the cot as we dug around trying to grab the threads and snip them. Alan wound up taking out most of the stitches because I couldn't see them well enough. Now our border collie boy no longer has his cone head on and is relieved of the itching of those pesky stitches. For myself the unexpected flashback to the best times that Alan and I spend was pay enough for playing dog doctor first thing in the morning.