No Lassie...not my arm!

May 29th, 2009: When you see a collie, anyone who is not a communist would think of the TV star, Lassie. She was a friendly dog that could leap grassy hills in a single bound, saving the annoying little boy Timmy from death on a daily basis with such ease. So when seeing five ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­collies running around between the hostel and coffee plantation, I had not one speck of fear in me - if anything…I felt safe.

While walking back to the hostel after an interesting coffee plantation tour with my pot smoking guide - who lit up throughout the tour during his version of a smoke break - some of the dogs wanted to play catch with the fallen sticks along the dirt road. Either I was not throwing the sticks far enough or high enough but when my arm was following through with what I thought was a stellar toss, Lassie made a spectacular jump, completely ignoring the stick and caught…my forearm. Holding it, but not moving or making any ferociously vocal noise…she just simply stood there looking at me with a blank expression as my forearm rested between her teeth. Did she want to play I thought? Why did she suddenly switch from the stick to my arm? Was she not getting the stick thrown to her as much as she liked? The other tourist I was walking with had a panicked look when I gazed over at him as the dog was attached to me – but, the vision of Lassie was so imbedded in my mind…I couldn’t panic, even if she did decide to perform some out of water piranha action on my limbs. Holding it uncomfortably hard for about 6 seconds too long, perhaps out of boredom…she decided to let me go.

As the dog now no longer wanted the stick and kept looking at my forearm…the North American Biscuit, I raised it up in the air to keep her away. I kindly informed the Lassie imposture that I was unfortunately done playing and that I wasn’t going to throw anymore sticks or feed her any more body parts as I strolled back to the hostel – arm still in the air.

Later that night, I overheard the collie’s parent saying that one of the collies couldn’t be trusted so he keeps her at the coffee plantation and away from the guests. They all look the same, so I would struggle identifying who was who if there was a lineup up at the town pound, except for knowing that one of them...will never be, Lassie.