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| Since You Asked...The Saturday night dinner went just fine. My husband whined about it quite a bit during the day, in anticipation of people coming over, but he got over it eventually and when they arrived with their kids things went smoothly. They have cute little girls. It wasn't a raucous night of conversation and entertainment, or anything...it was all family style fun, with kid-food and polite work talk, and it was over in about 2 1/2 hours. So, you know, a success, overall. But nothing really to blog about.
In other interesting news...I spoke to a manager of the manager of the manager at the furniture chain, today. It took quite a bit of persistence, but finally, at long last, I got a reason! It even sounds like a real, honest, legitimate reason. Evidently the chairs were originally shipped in the wrong finish, and rather than trying to schlepp them off on me, the company actually unwrapped them and realized they were the wrong finish and sent them back. Hence, the delay. Now, why no one simply picked up the phone, and explained this to me, I can't imagine. Perhaps they feared I would FREAK OUT. Perhaps the chairs were shipped in the wrong finish because the designer accidentally ordered them in the wrong finish, and she was too embarrassed to admit it. Perhaps she hoped I wouldn't notice the five-week delay, and no one would be the wiser. The moral, my friends: it's easier to just 'fess up and get it over with, than string people along and hope for the best.
More news of the weird: some years ago I blogged about a massage I got in town that crossed the line. It was a freaky experience. The man who gave me the massage just...well...crossed the line. There was inappropriate touching and brushing and then, at the end, a hug and a kiss on the cheek, which was completely unexpected and inappropriate. I've had plenty of massages in my time, ever since I fractured a vertebrae while horse-back riding in college, and let me tell you, I've never ever ever had an experience as creepy and weird as this one was. Two or three years after the massage, I got invited to a Mom's Night Out at this man's salon, upgraded with a new location. I opted out of the massage and just had a pedicure and joined in the wine-drinking and cheese-eating. Later in the night a group of us went to a nearby margarita place, and I told the story of my massage experience. Oddly, the reaction was split in two directions: those who couldn't wait to sign up and get (hopefully) a "happy ending," and those who were as grossed out and bothered about it as I was. I was SHOCKED at how many suburban moms felt perfectly fine about this kind of behavior. I went through several days of soul-searching re: my naivete. Fast forward to today: I just found out the owner and Main Massager at the salon has disappeared. It has created a lot of buzz. He has flat disappeared, taking a lot of cash with him. No one, not even his closest friends or associates, have any idea where he has gone, or why.
Which just goes to show, I was right, and there WAS something shady about him. I hope he's not dead. That would be REALLY creepy and weird.
I had errands to run today, but it has been steadily pouring since this morning and I hate to get wet. I needed to go to the grocery store and Home Depot and maybe Pottery Barn, oh, and Michael's, but i don't want to drag packages out to the car in the rain. I realize they make these things called umbrellas. I've seen some people use them to apparent good effect, but I don't own one because rain doesn't always travel straight down. It blows from side to side, too. Also it drips. In my narrow umbrella experience, I've found that it is impossible to go out in the rain and not get wet.
Looking out my office window, I can see our crazy mail carrier, delivering mail in the rain. If she wasn't such a freak, I might feel sorry for her. Okay, actually, I do feel a little sorry for her, because even though I'm trapped in a house with three screaming children and we are running out of food, at least I'm not delivering mail in the rain.
I've had a whole day, trapped inside, in the rain, but have I accomplished any of the myriad things I need to do around the house? Not really, no. I haven't paid the bills and the file system is still a disaster and I still have 300,000 photos in boxes strewn around on my side of the bed, left over from the move. I DID drive through the rain to McDonald's to pick up food for my kids at noon. This might not sound like much of an accomplishment, but it's better than feeding them desiccated vegetables and questionable leftovers. I never do a good job with the daily shopping during the summer.
Now I'm going to recreate some PTA folders. Ta-ta for now. | | |
| I'm Really Not THAT DifficultAnd, I mean, I hate to go on and on about the furniture delivery thing, but on Saturday some guys came to our house at 6:00 a.m. (WHO delivers at 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning???) and left me a table and a buffet but NO CHAIRS. Honestly, people, what good is a table if there are no chairs? Then this woman, who practically ridiculed me when I complained the first time, called me today in response to the message I left on Saturday. Because, you know, there's no one around to answer the phone on Saturday, which is DELIVERY DAY. Um, I don't know, because I don't own a furniture store, but I think I'd have someone available just in case, say, someone got a table and no chairs. She called me today and never even apologized. Not even a casual lead-in, like, "hey, I'm sorry you didn't receive your chairs." No, she just launched right into, "I got an email that you didn't receive your chairs. I checked our computers and they're on a truck and I think I can have them here on Wednesday or Thursday. So I'll call you later in the week. Okay? 'Bye." All in one breath, no chance for me to say ANYTHING. Doesn't she realize that the first rule of customer service is, when you make a huge mistake, you should give the customer a chance to vent???
Now I've been on hold with AT&T for, count them, 48 minutes. They suggest I call on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. Thing is, they sent me this really bizarre, unsigned letter that says I made changes to my account which I did not make. I don't feel like I can wait around until Wednesday to determine whether someone is using my cell number for illicit purposes. Or my identity. If you know what I mean.
Here's what really bugs me: why?? Why aren't the chairs here? I don't care that they're not, necessarily. I just can't stand not knowing WHY. I want to know whether the factory ran out of chairs, and had to make them, or whether someone forgot to order them, or whether they got left off the truck because a VIP ordered a big batch of furniture and I got shoved to the end of the line. I just really really really want an explanation for WHY I've waited (somewhat impatiently) eight weeks and STILL have no chairs. If I knew why, I think I could be more understanding. I'm not an unreasonable person. I'm very accommodating as far as normal human frailty goes.
It's like "War of the Roses," that old 80s flick with Michael Douglas and Katherine what's-her-name, that I watched last night while I did some legal research for my husband's latest "BIG trial" (that's another story altogether, why I'm doing research at midnight for something that isn't strictly my job, and has already been done, albeit poorly, by someone else). It's like War of the Roses, because during the whole movie, you can see she hates Michael Douglas' character, the wife, but you can't really completely understand WHY. I mean, sure, he's a self-absorbed, condescending, typical lawyer #$$*@(*, but it's still never clear WHY she will go to such lengths...why she hates him so much. This is exactly his character's position, and the reason he hangs around so long for the abuse. He can't figure out WHY?? WHY does she suddenly hate him and want a divorce? Any explanation will do. I completely identify with him. I am a person who craves explanations.
Lucky for all these people I'm so laid back and easygoing. Though, I guess it's not really luck. They don't care whether I'm easygoing or not. I just hate it when other people make me feel like *I'm* a problem. It's not like I'm calling because I didn't like the way the delivery people were dressed, or there's a microscopic scratch on the table surface, or I've changed my mind about the furniture. NO, nope, not a "problem customer." I would just like to receive the furniture we actually purchased. That's all. Low expectations.
I've given up on AT&T. They haven't answered their phone in a straight hour. I know WHY, though because they told me. They are experiencing unusually high call volumes and can't get to my call. I should try again on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday.
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| Life Returns to NormalNothing remarkable has happened in the last two days, which is a nice change from the early part of the week. I've made some strides on the brad folder issue. While not strictly re-create-able, I think they can be reproduced to within a reasonable degree of similarity. I'm going to decide over the next couple of weeks, based on the degree of similarity, whether to break the news to the PTA or just fake it and pretend they're the same folders they've always been. Or, alternatively, that I merely upgraded the folders. Gave them a facelift, to speak in language Podville women can understand.
Just to prove that I'm not a terrible person who can't avoid an interpersonal conflict at every turn, I've navigated hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of routine social interactions in the past forty-eight hours without once telling someone else they are a bad person. I haven't lost any children, either. Nor have I lost any important, irreplaceable, historical documents belonging to other people and entrusted to me against their better judgment. As a matter of fact, I have lived at least forty-eight hours without intentionally or unintentionally hurting someone, unless you count really remote stuff, like wearing clothing made in a factory that flagrantly violated human rights before we knew any better. Or maybe even recently. I probably own some stuff made in a factory that has been flagrantly violating human rights, even recently. I mean, it would be hard to know, I guess.
Oh, but here's something that was nice to learn, six weeks into my new house, which includes lovely, attractive granite countertops in the kitchen: now we're all going to get cancer as karmic retribution for our shameless greed in building this beautiful house. I *knew* the other shoe would drop.
I probably haven't mentioned that my husband and I live like hermits. In fifteen years of marriage we've probably had non-related people over to our home on three occasions, other than kid birthday parties. Just an interesting factoid about me, previously unrevealed. I've had women here, during the day or in the evening for book clubs, and I've had plenty of friends stop by for this and that, during the day. In our other homes I've hosted play groups and bunco nights and scrapbook sessions. But as far as having another couple or another family over for dinner or a casual afternoon, eh, not so much.
I'm sure you're completely uninterested in the reasons WHY we live like hermits. They aren't that interesting. It boils down to a few key points: my husband is the social hermit type, and is disinclined to agree to any social plans. Not only do I dislike arguments, I also don't particularly like hosting social events, so I'm a pushover when he resists. Then there's the gluten-free diet; other, regular people who don't know us that well have a hard time really grasping what a gluten-free diet entails, and food restrictions tend to make everyone uncomfortable.
Actually, the whole PDD-NOS, gluten-free diet, developmentally delayed child thing probably contributed significantly to our hermit-ness. I struggled with a lot of anxiety about our child and a lot of insecurity about how other people would treat us, and him, and me. The diet just made it worse. And then, when the diet worked, I stopped wanting to explain myself to anyone else and focused on changing our entire lifestyle. I'm still a little weird and gun-shy, even though now everything is mostly normal, other than the diet. I overreact to even tiny little issues, really even imagined issues, regarding his academic and social success at school. In sum, I'm kind of a freak. That whole autism thing really freaked me out.
Over the years we've just sort of settled into the ease of never having any social plans outside of what we each do during the day. On Saturdays we have a free babysitter, just because we're so lucky, so that tends to stop us from making plans with other families as well. Most other couples we know with young children don't have a weekly sitter, much less a free one. We aren't particularly inclined to spend our kid-free time, which is a gift, and could disappear at any time when and if our sitter decides she has something better to do on Saturdays, with other people's kids. We end up spending it alone, most of the time.
When we moved into the new house I kept saying I'd start having people over, but I soon discovered that I wasn't any more inclined to have people now than I have been over the past fifteen years. So today, when I was at lunch, telling a friend, "we have to get our families together soon," I felt suddenly inspired, and said, "how about tomorrow? Can you come over at 6:00?"
So, we'll see how it goes. It's one of those things, like riding a bike, I think. You haven't had guests in fifteen years, but once you invite them over it's like you're 22 again and it all comes right back to you. Right??? | | |
| Wherein a Rational Adult Devolves into an Emotional PreteenIn my defense, I had two REALLY BAD days, right in a row. First the whole thing with losing my daughter, and then, before I adequately recovered from the shock and guilt of that experience, the thing with the dog and the freaky mail carrier. Fear and guilt: two things I experience more often than is strictly healthy.
I may have mentioned a few thousand times on here that I am LOVING summer. LOVING it. And of course, the primary reason I'm loving it is I don't have to interact with the Podville people and their crazy-intense PTA. In the past eight weeks I've found myself actually trying to remember why, exactly, I thought I didn't like my neighborhood. I LOVE my neighborhood. I love my new house. I love my kids and my friends and the neighborhood pool and the park and, well, really, everything about my neighborhood.
School is starting in less than four weeks. Less than twenty-eight days of freedom. All of a sudden, I'm getting emails. Phone messages from the school district about...I don't know. I haven't been listening to them. Letters in the mail about school supplies and New Student Coffees and things like that. Then there were PTA committee emails and assorted other "school is gearing up" stress-creators.
Here's the thing (and you know there is a thing): I blogged briefly about a meeting in May, right before school ended, during which one of the PTA moms badmouthed one of my neighbors, saying she wasn't the "PTA type," and her brad folders were "sloppy" and she wasn't a "perfectionist about her PTA job." Then this same woman handed me a shopping bag full of old, creased, multi-colored brad folders full of Very Important PTA information about the annual "winter parties" that take place in each classroom. The shopping bag looked like it had seen better days, let me tell you. As she handed it to me, she was at pains to make it VERY clear to me how important the folders were, and how absolutely crucial it was that I take good care of them.
Well, you know, we moved. We moved about ten days later. I saw the ugly bag with brad folders and paper, the day before the move. I THINK I remember seeing it once after the move, though I'm not positive. I have never seen it again. I have torn the house up, inside and out, searched the garage and the (mostly empty) attic, and no shopping bag with ugly brad folders can be found.
Until yesterday, Day of The Dog, I believed without scientific support that the shopping bag was somewhere in the garage. We still have random boxes of assorted junk and clutter heaped up in our garage. Enough, in fact, that we can't park in the garage yet. I've been slowly moving toward the garage, emptying boxes and situating the family on the inside of the house, with the expectation that I'd get to the garage sometime in approximately late July.
Maybe it doesn't come across in this blog, but I am ruthlessly organized. I don't lose stuff. I don't forget things. I never, but NEVER, miss an appointment unless there has been some kind of miscommunication. This is why it was so upsetting that the dog got out yesterday. The dog NEVER gets out. The dog, like everyone else in the family, follows my rigid structure and doesn't stray from the appointed areas.
I digress. The point is, I'm so exquisitely organized, that yesterday was Garage Day (though it became Day of the Dog, through no fault of my own), and guess what? It's late July!! I predicted it in June, and six weeks later, my perfect planning came to fruition. Ah, the execution of a carefully created plan...such a good feeling. At least, I DID have a good feeling until I realized, with a sinking heart, that I've lost that blasted shopping bag filled with ugly brad folders that the PTA entrusted to me, and now I'm never going to hear the end of it. Actually, that's not true. I probably won't ever hear anything about it. But everyone ELSE will. And let's hope my children are good at making friends, because I'll be shunned and they'll be on their own.
I suspect, I fear, though I cannot prove, that what happened is this: the ugly shopping bag with the deteriorating brad folders made its way to the garage during the move, and then, when I left for Virginia ten days later on a 9 day odyssey, my husband got to work "helping" me and inadvertently tossed it. In his defense, the shopping bag looked like trash. Even when you looked inside it, it looked like trash. No regular person would think for half a second they should keep such a bag, if they were moving and decluttering at the same time.
He says he has no "actual" memory of throwing it away, but, in his words, "I'm not saying it COULDN'T have happened." He suggested I accept that the folders are gone, and move on.
No big deal, right? They sell brad folders for $.10 a piece at the Office Depot. Except the folders were stuffed with "Very Important Historical Information" about the winter parties, including a form that every Winter Party Chair for every classroom fills out every year, since about 1976, noting what games they played and prizes they used and music they played and how well the kids liked it.
Overkill?? Ridiculous amount of stress and work for what, at the end of the day, is a 45 minute cookie-decorating elementary school holiday celebration? I couldn't agree more. Sadly, I'm one of the few that sees it that way, here in Podville. To some, the holiday party represents the social highlight of the season. Heaven help me (and Jesus hold my hand!) when the PTA women find out I lost their ugly brad folders. And in fairness, I feel genuinely bad about it. The fact that I, personally, disdain the ugly brad folders does not change the fact that they represent a lot of work and effort on the part of a lot of mothers over the decades. I just HATE that its my fault the stupid thing got lost. I feel almost as fearful and guilty about THAT as I do about telling someone else she's a bad person, right in front of God (how's that, for some gratuitous insight into my troubled religious views?).
Ah, the fear. The guilt. The negative emotions that turn me into a childish freak. Which is exactly what I was, last night, practically weeping and gnashing my teeth and renting my garments because I couldn't find the blasted folders.
My husband told me some curious story about some random trial he's involved in right now, which was remarkable in its peculiarity, but otherwise unhelpful and confusing. Was he trying to comfort me? I can't be sure. Was he trying to give me perspective? It's possible. Sometimes that man is entirely inscrutable.
Then my housekeeper/babysitter told me with tears in her eyes that even though she's lived here for 18 years on a valid work permit and has a SS card and a driver's license and pays income taxes and has two grown daughters who were born here, she can't get citizenship. Now she's worried her father will die in Central America and she will be unable to visit him or go to his funeral because of the restrictions on travel for a person with a work permit. Now THAT'S a real problem. And me, worrying about these stupid little brad folders and a bunch of over-privileged children enjoying a holiday party.
Ah, the guilt.
But a legal problem, well, I can help with that! THAT I can do. I just can't organize holiday parties, evidently.
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| Two Recent Real-Life NightmaresNIGHTMARE #1
Yesterday, I had all three kids for the day, a lovely summer day, with nothing to do but entertain ourselves. I decided to take them to a local visiting exhibit. It's a rather elaborate thing, with some museum aspects, but some pure entertainment elements for children. Like a temporary carnival, but in a great big enormous convention center hall. You know how convention center exhibit halls are really really really big? And really really really tall? This was in a place like that. I don't know how wide. Maybe 200 yards wide and 200 yards deep. A 40000 square foot hall, maybe. Maybe 50000 square feet, I don't know. Lots of temporary exhibit thingies, set up around the outside, like at the dog show or the home show or something. Lines. Crowds. A huge, towering McDonald's-Play-Place style thing for kids. This thing had maybe, I don't know, five or six child-sized "stories," like if you're scrambling up the foam steps or whatever, to get to the twisty slide, you might have to climb up six stories. It was smack in the middle of the whole event, a big, round tower called Kidville, or something along those lines. One obvious entrance and exit. I learned later there are additional exits, but who knew? Parents aren't allowed in Kidville, unless they're directly supervising a little child. My kids are 3, 6 1/2 and 8. Too old to need (or want) supervision while playing in Kidville, but obviously too young to be trusted in a big, crowded public venue. For parents like me, they have erected these temporary grandstand-type things outside of Kidville, where you can sit and watch your kids, as much as possible, while they're climbing around in six different levels of a huge circular tower o' fun.
When we arrived at 9:00 a.m., the crowds were sparse. There was a heavy crowd presence, for sure, but not anything too different from your regular mall on a holiday. Hundreds of people, maybe. Not thousands. Hundreds of people dispersed among a bunch of different exhibits left Kidville relatively empty. There were maybe, I don't know, fifteen parents sitting on the grandstands, so maybe 30 or 40 kids in the structure. I found it easy to watch the exit and watch my kids. I could spot each one of them intermittently, but not all at once, obviously. Sometimes they were together, sometimes they were on their own, but every 3 or 4 minutes I caught sight of each of them.
We did Kidville, and then we did a bunch of other exhibits and then we ate at the snack bar and then we visited the bathroom and then, at about noon, we were ready to head home for lunch at Chik-Fil-A. On the way out, though, the kids asked if we could stop at Kidville for a few more moments. Sounded easy. A little rest on the grandstands, while the kids played in the tower o' fun, sounded pretty good to me. But as the kids ran into the tower I went to find a seat on the stands, and lo and behold, they were packed. Parents and kids everywhere. I started to realize that there were now thousands of people in the hall. Maybe tens of thousands. Strollers and kids and parents EVERYWHERE, and tons of noise, and lines for one exhibit merging with lines for another, with little organization. I looked around for a second. I tried to find a seat. I smiled at a nearby mother. I picked my way to my spot. I assumed all three of my children were still in Kidville, but the thing is, *I turned my back on them for at LEAST forty seconds.* Maybe longer. I don't know.
Outside of Kidville, at the entrance/exit, which was wide and crowded and comprised of foam stairs and a slide and a little platform thingie leading to the ball pit, a security type person was posted, bored and overwhelmed by the crowds.
Once I got situated I started scanning the tower for my kids. Saw one, saw two, couldn't find the third. My littlest one, my daughter. Waited a few minutes. Scanned again, couldn't find her. Now it's been at least five minutes since I've seen her; maybe more. I start looking again, but still can't see her. Now I'm standing on the grandstand, looking all over the different stories, anxiously scanning for her. Can't find her. One of my boys comes out..."Mom, what are you doing?" I say, "I'm looking for your sister. Have you seen her?" He tells me no, he hasn't seen her, but he'll go find her. My other son comes out. He hasn't seen her either. He goes back in. Now I'm pacing back and forth in front of the structure, not quite panicked but genuinely and visibly concerned. People start to notice. Other mothers ask, "what does she look like?" "What is she wearing?" "Where did you see her last?" My sons come back, one at a time, and report, "she's not in there. I went all the way to the top. She's nowhere in there." Now I'm shrieking. "FIND HER!!! Look again!! Go ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP and LOOOOOK!!" They seem a little alarmed, but not too scared, and they go back in.
I started looking around the room, around the greater area of the hall, and I realized with absolute panic that if she left the tower I would never find her. There were people everywhere. The place was packed. There didn't appear to be anyone in charge, either. No one to seal the exits or use a loudspeaker. I'm not even sure there WAS a loudspeaker. A woman with a clipboard saw the panic on my face and the other mothers talking to me and she asked me what was wrong. I told her my daughter was missing, and she started asking the kind of questions you see them ask on the news. How tall is my daughter? What color hair? Eyes? What was she wearing? Shorts or jeans? How was she wearing her hair?
I couldn't go into the tower, because what if she came out and I was gone? I couldn't leave the tower, because how could I trust my two remaining children to strangers? I was practically rooted to the spot, staring wildly around in every direction, looking for the little ice cream cones on her shirt. I wasn't crying. I was too busy panicking on the inside.
About fifteen minutes had passed before another mother, the one I smiled at on the grandstands, came up and told me she'd go look for my daughter. She was carrying her own baby, about 14 months old. She climbed to the top of the tower, but I couldn't see her once she went inside, and it seemed like she was gone forever. In the meantime a kindly, older lady with her grandchildren in a stroller put her arm around me. I couldn't watch. After ten more minutes and a few more interviews with security guards, she exclaimed, "I see her!!! That lady is bringing her down! She has her!!" I absolutely started sobbing with relief. Sobbing. I don't think I've ever cried like that in public before.
Turns out she had climbed to the top of the structure, and couldn't figure out how to get down. She was sitting in a corner, behind a punching bag type thing. My boys just missed her. What can I say? They're only 6 and 8. We left immediately. I'll never go back to that convention center again, even for the dog show. Never, in 8 years of motherhood, have I ever been that close to losing a child. EVER. Yikes.
NIGHTMARE #2
Today I was breaking down corrugated cardboard in the garage. We have a lot of it, because we're still in the process of moving. I loaded a bunch of giveaway stuff in the back of my van, drove to Goodwill, and then came straight back for the corrugated cardboard. I wanted to take it to the elementary school, where they have cardboard recycling dumpsters. When I came back to load the cardboard, I left the remote control gate open. i was only planning to be home for ten minutes, max. The gate is a new feature, with the new house. It's a wrought-iron type thing (not actual wrought iron...just black-painted metal), and it takes the place of a remote garage door, which we don't have. The gate is about midway up the driveway. The advantage to the gate is, 1) we don't need a remote garage door because no one can get to our garage; and 2) the yard is fenced without separating the driveway from the house, if you know what I mean. The kids can play on the driveway, and they're still behind the fence, thus eliminating the possibility of a repeat of Nightmare #1, on our street.
My daughter opened the back door to see what I was doing. She was home with a sitter today, along with the boys, because I had to go downtown this morning for a court thing. When she opened the back door, the dog ran out.
Our dog is a bad dog. He can't help himself. He has always been bad in the disobedient sense; he pees on the floor if we don't crate him at night, he snarls at small children who accidentally stumble into him, he begs, he doesn't respond when we call. When he was a young dog, 12 years ago, we hired a dog trainer, which didn't help. We enrolled in classes, which didn't help. We hired another trainer...still no good. At one point he wore a teeny tiny miniature choke chain, but it just made him more snarly. He's incorrigible, literally.
He is 13 years old now, and he loves me. He is six pounds. He is a yorkie. He doesn't bite, which is why we put up with all the rest of it.
The dog ran out, and the gate was open, and the mail carrier just happened to be stepping out of her mail truck at that very second. We have door-to-door mail service here. Our mail carrier is slow, lazy, undependable, and unfriendly. She drives like a lunatic and many people have complained about her for that reason; she is a threat to children and small animals. Sometimes she brings the mail at noon, sometimes at 2:00 p.m., but most often at 5:00 or 6:00 p.m. Frequently we have to exchange mail amongst ourselves, because she delivers it to the wrong houses. If you smile and wave, she looks at you through her mirrored sunglasses and makes no response. No smile, no hello, no nod of the head.
The dog ran toward her, barking and jumping and acting like a fool, and I ran after her, right on his heels, yelling his name and yelling, "sorry!" to the mail carrier. I was maybe ten yards away from scooping him up when she took a canister out of her shirt pocket and sprayed it in his face, once, twice, three times, four times, five times, SIX times. I figured it must be water. He retreated, of course. I picked him up. I wasn't far away. I started back up the driveway to put him behind the gate, and she jumped in her mail truck and sped off. Inside the house the dog was shaking his head and whimpering and pawing at his face, and I wondered what she might have sprayed him with. I wasn't mad she sprayed him. She's a mail carrier, after all. Their dislike and disunity with dogs is legendary. I thought she overreacted, but I completely understood why she did it. And, I mean, some people are afraid of dogs. I get that.
I walked out the front door looking for, to ask her what she used on him. I figured I would have to call the vet, or at least do some research, because he is 13 and if it wasn't water, who knows what it was?
When I found her I said, calmly and quite pleasantly, "hey, could you tell me what you sprayed my dog with? I just want to tell the vet what it is so I can make sure he'll be okay." She FREAKED. FREAKED. She started yelling and gesticulating and telling me she didn't have to talk to me, I could call the post office, she didn't have the time to explain herself to me, and anyway, she didn't have to, and she should report me for letting my dog out on her. I just kinda...stared...at her. She kept yelling. I said, "could you calm down? There's no reason to be so...rude...about it. I just want to know what it was." More yelling. More, "hey, so yeah, what'd ya spray him with?" Finally she said it was mace. She was still yelling. I just looked right at her, calm as can be, and I don't know why I said it, but it was like her viciousness and her cowardliness (running off after spraying my dog) and her lack of compassion and her crazy defensiveness all gelled in my head and I said, "You're a bad person."
Who says that??? I don't know what I was thinking. I turned around and left. She yelled after me, "I'm going to report you for sending your dog after me!!" I said, "go for it." I've prosecuted that particular "crime," after all. I'm familiar with the elements. I'm unconcerned. I mean, he didn't bite her. She has no injuries.
And, look, I feel bad for the judging. That's about the most judgmental thing you can say, "you're a bad person." I don't like the idea that I voiced a judgment like that. But the truth is, I kinda think it's true. I kinda think she IS a bad person. And I'm lucky she didn't get bitten, because even though he's a five pound yorkie, she'd probably sue me for a million dollars.
I'm not vindictive about it. I don't plan to complain about her, although one of my neighbors came by later and said she saw the whole thing and she hates the mail carrier and she hopes I'll report her for attacking my dog. Eh, I don't think so.
My dog is fine, according to the vet. He had a bath and an exam and seems A-Okay. He'll probably live to 25. I hope the mail carrier doesn't send her boyfriend over to set fire to my house or kill my family. She seemed just THAT crazy.
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