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The Ramp - Page 3

© Wendy Smith

It arrived on a Saturday, oddly enough. I had no idea that UPS ventured forth on Saturdays. I lugged the huge box inside and tore into it with all of the excitement of a kid on Christmas morning who knows that a Playstation 2 is somewhere under that tree. The dogs, wisely enough, stayed well away. Within moments, my newest treasure was laying in the middle of the living room floor.

This is it? This is what I paid all that money for? That’s their idea of “folds for convenient storage”?

The six-foot ramp was merely folded in half, making it a rather awkward 3-foot long lump of plastic. It had handles, but the grip wasn’t exactly what you would call comfortable, not to mention that it was the heaviest 20 lbs of dead weight I’ve ever picked up.

But still, it was pretty darn neat. Perhaps I just needed to get used to the thing. Still excited, I began to unfold the thing into it’s full length (nearly knocking over the coffee table and bopping my chin in the process. This was great! I couldn’t wait to get started, so I ran to the supply closest, grabbed a clicker and a hand full of treats. Within minutes, Chelsea was marching back and forth across the ramp as it lay flat on the floor. If I was going to give her a treat for walking back and forth across a piece of plastic, then who was she to argue?

Satisfied with my purchase, I folded it and propped it against an end table (nowhere else to put the thing). Tomorrow, I would get serious. Tomorrow, we would try it out on the Jeep.

The next day came and I dragged the ramp out of the house and tried to unfold it. It only made it about halfway open. You see, the ramp has a steel rod on either side of the folding point that you slide forward to stabilize the ramp when you open it. Unfortunately, due to a certain force on this planet known as gravity the rods are constantly sliding forward at the wrong time, thereby blocking the ramp when you do try to unfold it. Just as I pulled the offending rod back into its proper place and began to unfold the ramp again, the second pin slid down. After a few “human growls,” I’d finally wrestled the thing open and had it positioned on the back of the Jeep. I ran inside the house for the clicker, treats, and dogs.

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