Hairy ------------------------------------------------------ a Life Lesson by Ned Sane

Bright streaks of sunlight burst through the window and slammed silently onto Harry Wildman's sleeping face. The radiant heat seemed to magnify as it crawled up his cheeks and onto the thin eyelids covering his unconscious eyes.

Slowly.

The eyelids slid up from their locked positions. Inside Harry's head, the friction of his eyelids sliding on this eyeballs felt like two flexible sheets of metal dragging over concrete spheres as he blinked himself awake into the fierce heat of the morning sun.

Harry was a businessman.

He had spent the previous evening trying to sell shares of stock for a flea collar manufacturer to a group of small-time Chinese investors. The bartering session went down at a hopping little tavern near the airport. The session had concluded with the good possibility a sale. Harry had enjoyed his fair share of cocktails during the proceedings. Afterward, he weaved his way home through a blurry fog of painted highway lines and false optimism.

Now he was lying in bed feeling physical pain. And guilt.

He dragged his body from the bed, landed his bottom in the bathroom for relief, and then stumbled into the kitchen for some grub.
He thought to himself: Why do I feel guilty again?

It seemed that lately he was feeling more ashamed of his drunk driving episodes.

As he entered the kitchen, a strong chemical smell blasted into his nostrils. The odor was similar to the bleachy smell of the chlorinated swimming pool at the YMCA. He continued walking toward the refrigerator. As he approached, dizziness quickly overcame his senses. He was immediately overcome by a powerful gas smell. It caused him to stop and try to catch his balance. Then he tipped backwards. Still on his feet, he overcompensated and leaned forward too far. He crumpled into a heap onto the kitchen floor.

Harry's old refrigerator was leaking Freon gas.

Harry was lucky on that awful morning. His body did not die from the deadly gas. If it had not been for his roommate, who happened to find him lying on the kitchen floor only minutes later, he may have suffered more damage. Compared to the roommate, who never did pass out, it was apparent that Harry had gotten the worst of it. He had just happened to enter the kitchen during the highest concentration of Freon gas mixed with the air he breathed. Even minutes later, as the roommate entered the kitchen and discovered Harry unconscious, most of the Freon gas had already diffused to a less harmful concentration throughout the house.

An ambulance rushed Harry to the hospital.

He remained unconscious until the following day. Harry had suffered some damage. It was a rare combination of events that had occurred, and even the doctors did not fully diagnose the extent to which Harry's mind had been transformed.

The unusually high level of personal guilt he had been feeling as he entered the kitchen on that dreadful morning had caused an over-abundance of adrenaline to be released throughout his body. Some other chemicals, specific to the human brain's defense mechanism for guilt had also been flowing at relatively high levels. These biochemical conditions within Harry's body, combined with the potentially lethal blast of Freon gas directed into his bloodstream, had resulted in some severe damage to portions of Harry's brain that controlled his mental aptitude and personality. In more simple terms:

Harry had been reduced to a frisky housedog.

Literally.

Since the hospital staff did not personally know the old "Harry", they certainly could not see any immediate problems. He was still able to speak in a simple manner, and unless they had tossed a tennis ball to the other side of the room, there was really no way for them to detect the resulting miracle that had occurred.

So the medical staff went about their job: They nursed his body back to health and released him back into the world.

Unbeknownst to the hospital staff, they were releasing a patient who was really the "new Harry".

Let's call him "Hairy".

Hairy left the hospital with two things on his mind. First he needed to find some food. Second he needed a friend. A companion. Somebody who would throw him sticks and Frisbees.

Oh yes, he thought to himself. That would be ideal!

House dog logic was moving at full speed: He wondered if he could find somebody who would throw sticks and stuff, then he could chase after those objects, and he could bring them back to the person that threw them. Then that person would reward him with food. He would virtually be getting paid to have fun!

Hairy was still a businessman.

He soon came to a large schoolyard where dozens of children were romping with glee.

Hairy related immediately to their playful carefree expressions of life. So he climbed over the fence and joined in the fun. Their playing quickly slowed to confused giggling.
The children then began to run in fear from the very odd stranger. He was chasing after them with his tongue flapping free. The fresh morning breeze rushed across his cheeks making him feel more alive than ever.

After chasing several of the children across the sandy playground, Hairy stopped to think about what to do next. The first thought that popped into his head, as he stood panting among the few remaining curious children, was to identify and befriend one of the friendlier kids in the group as soon as possible. Hairy was very hungry.
He scanned the group quickly, and then grabbed the closest child. The young boy began screeching horribly. Hairy lifted the boy's face to his and proceeded to lavish the boys face with a wet, sloppy tongue bath. The other children scattered.
Hairy was arrested within minutes.

After a short hearing, he was sentenced to serve six months in a county jail. The time seemed to fly by for the new, carefree Hairy.

One of the only negative marks on his time in the county jail was an unfortunate incident where he was stabbed in both arms for humping another inmate's leg.
Another note in the prison journal documented a complaint from other inmates at the fact that Hairy was able to bend his body enough to lick his entire body, and that he flaunted it daily in front of the others.

And once he was caught drinking face-first from a toilet.

Hairy was eventually released for good behavior. The prison psychiatrists pronounced that Hairy was indeed sane, but unfortunately enjoyed all the same things that a typical dog would. The examining physicians could not explain why Hair behaved in this manner. This did conclude that he was really of no danger to society.
Hairy promised to leave children alone.

The day he was released, Hairy felt a pent-up energy about to be released. He had hated being in a cage like that. In fact, he was so excited as he walked outside the perimeter of the prison fence, that he began chasing the first car that passed by.
Unfortunately for Hairy, the road was a four-lane highway, and he was soon mowed down by traffic. Witnesses said he looked very excited, almost happy, as cars blasted into his body, arms flailing. One motorist said that his tongue seemed to be hanging way out of his mouth. "More than I would expect for a human tongue to hang," was the quote.

Moral: If your refrigerator is old, then you should never feel guilty about driving drunk.