i’m not a cat person. don’t really remember liking any i’ve met. i’m not a kitty kicker, but i’m usually allergic to their furry nastiness. i don’t mind dogs, usually. never really wanted to have one-they refuse to clean up their own poop, they require a grip of attention, they bark, they chew things up, you have to come home late at night because they need to be fed, they have to be cared for when you go on vacation, and i’m sometimes allergic to them. kinda like having a discount kid (except for the barking thing). the cute/play-with-me/company-providing aspects are nice for both kids and dogs. but i enjoy playing a bit with a dog and then walking away or handing it back. same with kids… they frighten me a bit, especially in large numbers, but hanging out for a few hours isn’t so bad, as long as you can walk away.
michelle’s friend and running partner, Jennifer, is bent on my demise. we haven’t met yet, but she found a puppy dodging cars at the grocery store parking lot and decided to invite Michelle to adopt it.
i begged michelle to put up “found puppy” signs, which she printed out and hopefully posted somewhere logical, but there have been no inquiries.
fortunately for me, Wash (you know, like in Firefly? i’m a leaf on the wind…) has taken a liking to privacy during bowel movements, and heads behind these overgrown red-tip shrubberies (snicker) in our back yard when he has to poop. so everything stays in close proximity which allows michelle to clean up easily. he’s also the quietest dog in the history of caninekind. i’ve heard a single (1) bark in the 3+ weeks he’s been here. this gives me great relief.
that’s only the prelude to my raison d’ecrire. on to the meat…
as we have no clue to where Wash came from, we assumed that he needed his vaccines and all. last saturday, i was coming to the realization that this might be a long term, soul-selling contract with the dev dog, michelle found a low cost one-day clinic for rabies shots on the east side of town. this isn’t a bad thing-saving a bit of cash. apparently, it can cost $30 for the shot itself and additional fees for a visit to the veterinarian. but i wasn’t prepared for what was about to happen.
being a typical city’s east side, it was predominantly older neighborhoods and low income housing. i never realized that breeds of people aligned so closely with dog breeds. all the vatos and essaies were there in their long shorts (short long pants, maybe?) and wife beaters. all the pudgy folks in their too tight shorts that made their buttocks look like 2 pigs fighting under a blanket. all the nappy old people with knotted hair and before-they-became-cool-again plastic rimmed Coke bottle glasses sputtering up in their decrepit cars to a poorly maintained city park.
and the dogs. good God… the dogs.
dogs that had to have been at present at the Chernobyl meltdown… really that old and really that funky-looking. straining on their tattered leashes. i watched truly homely boymenboys stumbling after a frightened runaway goat-poodle hybrid. at least i think that’s what it was. one old man was leading two dogs around, for one of whom, the rabies vaccine may have been too late. it was literally foaming at the mouth and squirting urine on everything above ground level. another old man with a fedora was dragging an empty chain, completely oblivious to the fact his dog had slipped out 20 steps ago. pubescent Hispanic boys with their pathetic patchy porn-staches struggling to subdue their hideous pink-eyed pit bulls with balls the size of those little punching bags made to hang from the ceiling and hit overhand at a rapid velocity. i watched countless people, who probably abuse their pets, drag their dogs by the leash across the parking lot or hit them repeatedly on their muzzles. everywhere around, there were filthy people. dogs that reeked of stale shit. bitches with bodies that had been forced to deliver litter after litter until their nipples scraped the ground from nursing. ugly people. poor people.
now stop.
i consider myself a struggling disciple of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ message was one of love. but although the description i portray is light and (hopefully) moderately amusing, the tone i write with is one of scorn. disgust. arrogance. i was sneering inside.
i work with the Church. i grew up in a family that taught me to respect that which is around me, be it environment or living beings. yet through my tightly clenched soul, hate leaked through.
i didn’t throw out any snippy comments to michelle or Ashley, who was in town with us for the weekend. i didn’t let any searing looks betray my heart. i didn’t challenge the masculinity of the small-souled men compensating with big dogs. and i certainly didn’t rush into the mass of humanity and animal with fists flying demanding that people take better care of themselves and of the animals they neglect. but i was keenly aware of what was going on, inside me and out. i stood passively, letting it happen. and it’s been a long time since i so intensely hated who i am.
