SORRY

I was sitting around Central Fire Station (Station #1) in Laredo one night, chewing the fat with the guys (most likely pulling one of my frequent ride-alongs with RQ-1, the rescue squad housed there), when the guys told this tale:

Seems years ago, the station had a mascot, a dog named "Sorry." The dog got her name from the fact that she would just plop down on the floor in the most heavily traveled areas, whereupon everyone in the station would step on and trip over the dog, and automatically say "Sorry!"

Well, Sorry was apparently getting on up in years, and one morning, had an arthritis attack. A couple of the guys gave the dog some pills they'd gotten across the border in Mexico (a popular past time, getting pills in Mexico that were the exact same drugs as doctors prescribed in the US, but at one-tenth the price).

They gave her four pills, which seemed to ease her discomfort. She did all right, until suddenly, right in the middle of the night, while everyone was in their bunks, the dog went crazy! Sorry turned into the demon from hell, barking and snarling at everything in sight, including the dispatcher, who was also housed at Central Station. The dog couldn't be calmed, and the dispatcher ended up being chased on top of the radio console. He was really stuck now, and not knowing quite what to do next, he pulled the station alarm.

Everyone rolled out of bed and shot down the brass poles, ready to roll, only to find no emergency, just the dispatcher treed on top of his own console. Of course, once they piled into dispatch, Sorry began chasing the rest of the crew as well; they all had to jump into the apparatus to get away. After they finally stopped laughing their asses off, one of the guys finally got to a phone and called animal control to come to the rescue!

Loredo, Texas, USA
Patty Waits Beasley (Doc)