My dogs are thugs. I’m proud of this fact. My older dog, Stanley, doesn’t like for random strangers to touch his head and my younger one, Freddy, doesn’t like for anyone to touch my other dog at all. They’re not mean about it per se, but they will do anything they can to get the hell away from these nutjobs.
I’m pretty much the same way.
My older dog and I were sitting outside at a cafe having coffee one morning when we saw a guy that lives on our block walking toward us. After a particularly bad morning, I wasn’t in the mood to have the same ten minute conversation that we always did. Or rather, the conversation that he always had with my dog. “Has your Dad been taking you for a walk?” ”Did you and Dad walk to Petco?” ”I saw you and Dad walking to Starbucks the other day.” Inevitably, there would be a moment of awkward silence as if he was expecting my dog to magically answer until finally I would speak on behalf of my non-speaking pet.
I hid behind the solace of my dark sunglasses and to punctuate my point even further, I buried my face in my coffee mug. I hid my smile in the cup, pleased that I’d dodged the banal chit chat. Until, I heard him shouting.
“STANLEY!”
Clearly, my imaginary invisible shield wasn’t working this early morning.
“STANLEY! HEY STAN!” he yelled as he excitedly walked over.
“Oh, hey!” I said. ”I didn’t even see you there.” I fully admit that I’m incredibly quirky when it comes to interacting with people I don’t know. I also acknowledge that in this particular situation the guy is being nothing but incredibly nice, and that I’m the asshole. I get it.
However, apparently my dog was also feeling anti-social and went under the table. I couldn’t have been more proud that we did share a similar disdain for crazy dog people.
The man persisted and Stanley hopped behind my legs to avoid being pet.
“Come here Stanley. Come say hi to me!” the guy said as he bent down in his nice suit pants and a button down shirt. ”Tell me how you’re doing today buddy!”
Meanwhile, I was completely taken out of the equation. He talked to my dog only. I took another bite of oatmeal and pretended to check my email as my child was being harassed under my feet.
“Stanley, come here!” he said. Then, my nice neighbor reached under my chair and grabbed Stanley from behind. This was right about the same time that I finally broke from my fake email writing, and looked to see what the hell was going on. As the well-dressed man grabbed harder, my son the thug, let a stream of flying diarrhea shoot all over the guy’s shirt and pants.
He was covered in shit.
There was complete silence for about 90 seconds. I had never seen anything like it. It was AMAZING. It was if my dog had had enough of the baby talk, the grabbing, the forced petting. Stanley was sending a message to all the crazy dog people that went into an ecstasy seizure when they saw him. You mess with me, I’ll mess you up.
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I-I-I…” I stammered for words.
“Yeah, um. No, really it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have grabbed him like that,” he said to my surprise. I offered to pay for his dry cleaning, but he declined. I think he was still in shock.
“Here’s some napkins. You have a little bit on your cheek and on your left hand,” I said.
He turned ghost white and said, “I better go. I have a meeting in ten minutes.” He walked up the block towards his house and was met with several disgusted stares.
I love my dogs.