Don’t let the screen door hit you on the way out. If you let it, it will just keep doing it. Don’t let it, discourage it. Speak sharply to it, make eye contact. Try to appear taller.
Either that or disconnect the spring at the top.
This also works with threatening dogs, except the spring part, dogs have no springs. That’s threatening, not committed. You can tell from the eyes. A dog that has made up its mind to attack does not bark and is looking where he plans to go. If a dog is looking you in the eye it’s because he’s worried what you might do. When he stops looking it’s because he doesn’t care. That’s a committed dog.
Screen doors lack the ability to form such commitment. They are never sure, confident. You might slam them, which is bad for them. Also they are usually fixed to a door frame or other solid object which means they are more opportunist than predator. Hyenas of the home. This is why the screen door usually strikes from behind. Unless it is of the sliding variety in which case it tries to clip you from the side if it senses you are drunk or wounded. Or stupid.
And so it is, with a summer storm rolling in, Jessie the Dog who is afraid of nothing except thunder came up against the cunning tactics of the screen door - blocking her path, standing between the devil thunder and the safety of the space in the laundry room between the freezer and the wall. And, like a lion harried by nipping hyenas, when she decided to take on the screen with all her doggy force it was of little contest.
The carnage is difficult to imagine. The lower panel of screen in tatters, the upper panel grieving. Mosquitoes calling to their kin “the walls have fallen, the humans are ours.”
And now the storm breaks, the wind whips, the temperature drops and the rain begins to smash down, stripping the newly blossomed Jacaranda flowers from the trees.
So I don’t care because I’m closing the doors and windows anyway. Stupid dog can stay out there. Tomorrow I will repair the screen to confound and puzzle the mosquitoes (“no really, you could get right inside, where they live. They have pay TV”) but the screen will not care. Will not be grateful.
This is why I tell you not to let it hit you on the way out, give it no quarter, cut it no slack. Be firm with it, don’t take any shit, but don’t slam it. That’s bad for them.
Either that or disconnect the spring at the top.
This also works with threatening dogs, except the spring part, dogs have no springs. That’s threatening, not committed. You can tell from the eyes. A dog that has made up its mind to attack does not bark and is looking where he plans to go. If a dog is looking you in the eye it’s because he’s worried what you might do. When he stops looking it’s because he doesn’t care. That’s a committed dog.
Screen doors lack the ability to form such commitment. They are never sure, confident. You might slam them, which is bad for them. Also they are usually fixed to a door frame or other solid object which means they are more opportunist than predator. Hyenas of the home. This is why the screen door usually strikes from behind. Unless it is of the sliding variety in which case it tries to clip you from the side if it senses you are drunk or wounded. Or stupid.
And so it is, with a summer storm rolling in, Jessie the Dog who is afraid of nothing except thunder came up against the cunning tactics of the screen door - blocking her path, standing between the devil thunder and the safety of the space in the laundry room between the freezer and the wall. And, like a lion harried by nipping hyenas, when she decided to take on the screen with all her doggy force it was of little contest.
The carnage is difficult to imagine. The lower panel of screen in tatters, the upper panel grieving. Mosquitoes calling to their kin “the walls have fallen, the humans are ours.”
And now the storm breaks, the wind whips, the temperature drops and the rain begins to smash down, stripping the newly blossomed Jacaranda flowers from the trees.
So I don’t care because I’m closing the doors and windows anyway. Stupid dog can stay out there. Tomorrow I will repair the screen to confound and puzzle the mosquitoes (“no really, you could get right inside, where they live. They have pay TV”) but the screen will not care. Will not be grateful.
This is why I tell you not to let it hit you on the way out, give it no quarter, cut it no slack. Be firm with it, don’t take any shit, but don’t slam it. That’s bad for them.
