Friday, November 02, 2007

shit storm

Three storms since we moved here. During the first one the neighbor’s dog turned up scared and shaking. I put it in the garage and the next morning we put up a flyer at the general store. Dog was safely home an hour later, two properties down on the other side of the road.

Second storm was during the day and I came home to find the sliding door open and the neighbour’s dog in P4’s bed. Back to the garage she went, I figured the neighbour would be straight over as soon as he realized she was gone. Not so. Next morning, 6am before work, I loaded up the dog took her down the road and found the gate locked. So I left her there. That afternoon she was back. Next morning I load her up again and take her back, thanks very much and blah blah says the fella. “Funny”, he says, “she did come home yesterday morning, but she ran off again”. I mentioned the bed thing, figured that should do it.

Today we had a storm, rain wasn’t just horizontal it was horizontal and circular. Fire trucks and cops racing around everywhere, trees down, power out, that sort of thing. I got home and, although Mrs Joe swears she locked it, I find the sliding door open precisely one dog-width and after much searching located the timid beast wedged into the ironing board cupboard in the laundry.

And the shit. There was a lot of shit. Runny, putrid scared-dog shit on the beds, on the carpet, down the hall, on the walls and just about every surface in the laundry room. I had a shower, found more shit to clean and had another damn shower.

A little later, when the neighbour, Mrs Neighbour this time, came rolling down the driveway she caught me training my dogs to chase the other dog. It won’t budge for me but it will for the dogs so I figured they might be able to chase it off and it would go home. She would have seen me waving my arms and shouting “Go-on-GIT!” while my dogs danced about barking and her dog cowered against my leg, smearing more shit on me.

“Awfully sorry” she said as she picked up her dog, which was rather glad to see her, “we only just got home and…oh…is that shit?”. I told her I believed it was but before I could say more she did a monologue about perhaps getting rid of it because they have “so many storms, up there on the hill”. I can see their house from here so these many storms must be quite localized, but by then I was tired of the whole thing and just let her be on her way.

Hopefully next time they will lock it indoors. And it shits in their fridge.

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