Bumper? Hell I just met her.

The panicked squeal of the dog was followed instantly by the sound of something dragging behind my car along the gravel driveway.

I immediately stopped, fearing the death (or at least serious dismemberment) of one of my parents two Labradors. The two dogs, one a highly intelligent jet black lab named Rain and the other a chocolate lab named B.U.D. (acronym for Brown Ugly Dog) had run across the driveway as we pulled in for a Labor Day visit.

I had slowed down to let them pass before continuing to a parking place. I knew that as long as Rain was the leader, everything should be fine. B.U.D. was a different story. He couldn't be trusted to make good decisions.

I'm not sure how much in-breeding there is in his questionable lineage. I just know that in the parlance of rural Kansas, he's dumber than a bag of hair.

So when I heard the loud canine yelp and the dragging sound from the rear of the car, my first thought was that I was going to have to perform an act of euthanasia on a half-wit dog that had decided to lay down under my car.

I actually felt sorry for the poor beast as I shifted the car into Park, and I wondered how I would explain this to the five-year-old dog lover in the backseat.

My entire perspective changed when I saw what was lying on the ground behind my car. The plastic bumper (which is actually the bumper cover) was torn from the driver's side, just behind the rear tire, across the back of the car and was dangling by a few plastic clips on the passenger's side rear.

A chocolate Brown Ugly Dog, was sitting nearby, dumbly drooling and wagging his tail, seeming almost proud of the destruction he had caused. It didn't take the intelligence of a black lab to quickly size up the situation:

The two dogs had run across the driveway in front of my car. But B.U.D. was latched to a dog cable, probably due to his severe stupidity to keep him from roaming the countryside and running out to greet oncoming semi trucks on the highway a quarter-mile away.

So when he crossed the driveway, he took the cable attached to his neck with him. My car tires rolled over the cable -- front tires first, then rear tires. As soon as the cable cleared the rear tires, the dog pulled tight on the line. It became stuck on the rear fender and easily pulled the entire bumper cover off the car.

What I initially took for a yelp of panic, probably was a yelp of triumph. A canine half-wit's way of saying "Hurray, look what I did!"

So after a few minutes of suppressing my cursing reflex, I made the call to AAA. I gave them the info, they said get and estimate on Tuesday and they'll cover the cost of the repair (after I pay my $500 deductible, of course).

So it takes a couple of weeks for the body shop to get the parts in and get the work done. I'm supposed to pick up my car with a shiny new bumper cover today, and I'm only out $500 bucks.

Oh, and just to prove that God's Irony Ray was aimed squarely at me, this all happened the week after we made the final payment on the car.

Hilarious.

tagged: car, accident, bumper, dog, body shop