I wish this were embellished.

There are some things in life that you prepare for knowing they will be difficult but you’ll get through them.

Then there are other things in life that are so far out of left field that their very occurrence defies numerous laws of physics, every odd you’ve ever heard of, and throw you for such a loop that you’re left wondering whether you should buy a lottery ticket or start building a panic room in preparation for 2012.

Having to rescue your small dog from falling into an air vent is one of the latter.

I humbly present….the scene:

As usual, my dogs were staring out the window waiting to scream their little faces off at any person, vehicle, leaf, plastic bag, crumpled receipt, or sinister rain drop that so much as THINKS about looking in the direction of our home. You see, on any given day, they are consistently somewhere in between girlfriend-who-agreed-to-let-boyfriend-go-to-Vegas-with-the-guys-but-only-to-give-him-the-opportunity-to-be-mature-and-stay-home-with-her-except-then-that-sonofabitch-actually-went-and-was-seen-on-Facebook-getting-a-lapdance and Naomi Campbell on the official Boudreau Scale of Irrational Lashy-Outy.

Standing directly over the vent, as seen in Exhibit A, the dogs were jumping up and down, clearly overcome by their own levels of sheer ferocity and shockingly overestimated terror-inducing stature:

The first jump flipped the plastic air director thingy (that’s the scientific term), wedging it ever-so-slightly between the white metal vent cover and the hardwood floor.

The second jump landed on the precarious plastic air director thingy, creating a lever effect, flipping the white metal vent cover clear out of the air duct and leaving a dachshund-sized hole exposed in the floor….you know, about as normal and every-day as seeing a Sperm Whale bartering the price of pierogies at your local Farmers’ Market.

The third jump saw Theo land not on the comfortable, stable and secure hardwood – oh no – but rather directly into the conveniently sized opening in the floor.

After going elbow-deep into the air duct, I returned little Theo to solid ground and watched my little 10lbs of Bad-Ass go from “WHAT THE FLYING DUCK WAS THAT ALL ABOUT? SERIOUSLY! YOU HAVE ONE JOB – ONE JOB! – AND THAT’S TO KEEP ME SAFE, ASSHOLE! HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN? SONOFA! GOD! MOTHER! GOD!” to “Holy shit….do you think anyone saw that? Whoa. Okay. Damage control. Limp and whine. Limp and whine. Hold up one paw and act like it’s broken. It’ll be fine. It’ll allll be fine.” to “Just be cool. Nothing happened. We were all just napping and then we just kept on napping. Nothing happened. Napping. Yes. Napping. ZZZZzzzzzzzzz…”

Fishing a small dog out of the air ducts of a home? Add that to the list of things that someone upstairs with a sense of humour saves just for me. I honestly don’t even know how normal people spend their Saturday mornings anymore.