Tag Archives: animals

Circular cruelty

If I didn’t have enough reasons to hate those hideous circulars that companies randomly drop on your doorstep, I got a big one today.

While trying to comfort a slightly fussy baby, I suddenly heard Arrow freaking out – yelping loudly at the front door. When I got there, I found that a man with a bag full of circulars was holding the front storm door tightly closed on the dog’s foot. Arrow was literally writhing in pain, yelping helplessly. Like an idiot, I tried to grab his collar with the baby in my left arm so the man would let the door go, and he bit my right arm, as a suffering dog will. I ran and put Declan in the pack n’ play and ran back to the door where I yelled at the man to let go and he finally did. Arrow had already peed, pooped and vomited from the fear and the pain.

I was so angry and shaken I ran outside and screamed after him (all he had to worry about from the dog was barking, I was ready to bite him myself), but he had already run off. The dog was limping, the baby was crying and my arm was throbbing. I fetched “The Bag” from the neighbor’s porch to get the number of the company and called to complain. I don’t really remember being that angry. Two people called me back to apologize for the incident, but it didn’t feel like enough.

I’ve been working hard at making sure the dog is trained to be gentle and nonaggressive. He’s definitely been more protective since the baby was born – which mainly makes him bark at male visitors – but he has never hurt anyone, and his biggest threat to the baby has been overloving him. I’m afraid this one man’s stupidity could have just wreaked havoc on my separation-anxiety-ridden puppy.

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The ghost of Frankie Avalon


Arrow
Originally uploaded by tzt.

Last night, we went to bed to the sound of cries of “Oh my God, Oh my God! I can’t believe we fucking LOST!” all over the neighborhood. The neighborhood being on the perimeter of the Ohio State University campus and the timing being moments after the Buckeyes crashed in the ballyhooed football game against Texas.

Our neighbors change year-to-year, and sometimes quarter-to-quarter. The apartment building full of yutzes behind us has been transformed into a tolerable mix of quiet, foreign grad student families and one annoying hosebag who likes to ride around the parking lot on one of those pocket bikes nightly. (Look at me! I am a GIANT!)

The houses around us largely contain working folks, but there is one place where the highest form of humor is clearly Budwesier commercials. You know you’re in trouble when a house full of undergrads turns on a red and blue neon “Open” sign in its picture window every weekend night and has a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker stuck to a board that’s been nailed to a tree about 12 feet above the pavement.

But last night, they were mostly quieted by the outcome of the game, where the most hilarious sign in the crowd simply said “Austin is better than Columbus.” Riots only bust out when OSU wins.

Meanwhile, our year and a half old puppy, Arrow, barked incessantly in the living room as we were trying to fall asleep. I thought it was the endless parade of hangdog drunks who were stumbling down the street muttering “Why, God, WHY!?” that were bothering him. But my husband went to investigate and found that the arch-enemy of peace in our home was a Dora the Explorer beach ball that I roll Declan around on when he’s having gas pains. The inflatable toy was eerily moving in circles on the hardwood floor in the living room, spun by wind from a fan.

Here I was, still annoyed at him for eating a half a stick of butter off of the kitchen counter the night before – mainly because it transformed him into a butter-obsessed beggar. But incidents like that one mostly serve remind me that I live with two babies.

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