Who Let the Dog Out?
April 5, 2004
It was like any normal weekend day, when I suddenly received a call from Rich. I was caught lounging around the house just watching TV with Pepsi and potato chips in hand. He told me that he was bored during a day-long visit at his grammy�s house. He needed to get out for a while. His grammy lived within walking distance to my house, so he decided to take a leisurely stroll for a visit. I said that I would meet him half way to cut down on walking time and maybe we could find something useful to do, so I proceeded out the door. Before I began my trip, I stopped by next door to see if Shawn wanted to join us and he was on board as well. We walked until we got to Clearview Ave. when we spotted Rich in the distance, but Rich was not alone. He traveled with a companion this time around. I don�t remember if it was a stray dog, but if my memory serves, it was his grammy�s dog at his side. Rich seemed a little perturbed by this straggler and was running to try to shake it off his heals. The dog mistook the mad dash for �playtime with Rich�. I can still picture Rich at a full sprint with a grim look on his face, half exhausted and half agitated while this medium-sized dog was hopping and yelping at Rich with full tongue extension. This site made Shawn and I laugh uncontrollably.
As the sweat beaded on Rich�s forehead, he came to a complete halt and looked down at his new found friend as daggers streamed from his eyes. All of a sudden, a loud boisterous voice shrieked out of a passing vehicle. The laughter subsided and Rich, doubled-over while he caught his breath, gazed up at this little old lady in her car, who had directed her wrath at him. It seems that the local animal rights coalition organized a task force and they embarked on the rough streets of Crafton looking for offenders and this elderly woman had just found her pot of gold. The lady went into a tirade about how �dogs cannot be run like that� and �they can die from the overexertion� and �shame on you for trying to kill that dog�! At one point, she even asked for our names to which Shawn shouted-out, �Don�t give her your name, Dan!� Shawn is one of my oldest friends, but I�m not sure if I would want to be trapped in a POW camp with him while they were probing for answers (not that I would want to be trapped with any one). All three of us, and even the dog, were dumb-founded by the passionate anger erupting from someone's grandma.
After about five minutes of submission to this browbeating, I noticed that Rich was getting visibly upset with this unfounded abuse, as we all were. At that point, I started to get mad and realized the lady wasn�t letting up on Rich. If you ever saw �The Exorcist�, then you know the look that flashed over my face as I rudely interrupted her with my declaration. I exclaimed, �HEY LADY, LISTEN HERE! THIS ISN�T HIS DOG AND HE ISN�T TRYING TO HURT IT! IT HAS BEEN FOLLOWING HIM FOR THE LAST 2-MILES, SO JUST LEAVE HIM ALONE OR I WILL CALL THE COPS ON YOU!�
When provoked, I have a pretty good temper passed down to me from my mom, who got it from her dad (just ask Amy and my kids). This was a prime example of that blood-line boiled over. We were pretty young at the time, maybe low teens, and I believed strongly in respecting my elders, and still do. But at this point, I pushed all values aside because this lady was doing the same by mistreating my cousin and flying off the handle without getting all the facts. From the time we were kids and I taught him how to ride a bike, I have always thought of Rich as my younger brother. This feeling overwhelmed me when I heard this lady not conceding with her cruelty. Rich is a very non-confrontational person and when I saw him hunched over with fatigue combined with his typical reserved nature, I knew I had to alleviate the problem. It wasn�t because Rich couldn�t take care of himself; this kind of thing just wasn�t in his temperament. He would rather passive-aggressively avenge this act of malice and this wasn�t the time for that kind of retaliation. Soon after the episode and for years to come, we laughed about this outburst of emotions. It also acted a great antidote to make us giggle every time I lost my temper since that day on Clearview. |
