HAIRSHIRT
Helping You Get the Most Out of Your Misery
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HAIRSHIRT Helping You Get the Most Out of Your Misery |
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Tuesday, April 17, 2007So Help Me Dog
Wow. I'm a little nervous about writing anything about this, 'cause I'm fairly certain the second I hit "Publish", a meteor will crash into my apartment, but...things have gone pretty well today.
...Okay, no sudden Wrath of God yet, so I guess I'm okay for now. So, yeah, I went down for Jury Duty this morning, sat around for awhile reading my magazine, showed them the proof that I'd already served and wasn't due to serve again for another year and was summarily dismissed. I practically fucking skipped out of the courtroom, grinning at all the poor bastards who were stuck there. I know that, especially as a teacher, I should consider it my duty and an honor to sit on a jury. But fuck that. I will say that the Federal District courtroom was a hundred thousand times classier than the pile of shit NY State Court room I was in three years ago. No roaches or anything. (Plus, wood panelling! Yowza!) Then I took my ailing iPod to TekServe, New York's Apple SpecialistsTM. After another, shorter wait, a very nice lady plugged my iPod into her computer and stopped me in the middle of my babbling explanation of the problems I'd been having to tell me that there didn't seem to be any problem whatsoever. And it seems she was right, as it's playing "You're the One" by the Black Keys right now. I don't know what the hell happened, but I'm not looking a miraculous healing in the mouth. All this left me with time this afternoon to take my dogs to the newish dog park that's just down our street. Now, when my wife and I lived in Seattle, the neighborhood dog park was practically our second home. We took Ben, our older dog, there every damn day. We had Dog Park Friends and even a Dog Park Enemy, this beret-wearing dickhead with a fat-ass weimaraner. After they closed that dog park down--it was in a semi-schmancy neighborhood and the rich pricks who lived there weren't nuts about the urine, the barking and such--we loaded Ben in the car for regular trips to the next-closest run. Once we moved to New York, though, there wasn't really a dog run close enough to not be an utter and complete hassle. (You try finding a parking place in this city.) So Ben just laid around getting chubby and Mortimer, who'd never had a regular dog park routine, never got used to being around other dogs. So, when this dog park opened up a couple months back, I was a little hesitant to go. I've got a nasty case of the paranoids, see, and when you couple that with the type of high-strung yahoos who sometimes go to dog parks, I just worried that too much wrestling from Mortimer or too much barking from Ben would set someone off.  If you've never been to a dog park, lemme 'splain: Dogs like to wrestle and play fight. Dogs hump each other to establish dominance. Fights do occasionally break out, but things usually work themselves out once everyone's figured out who's who. Ignorant owners, though, think that the slightest barking means your dog is the canine Charles Manson. They think that, if your dog mounts another boy dog, it's sexual and your dog is gay. People can get real worked up over simple dog behaviors. I've seen it happen and it's not pretty. Which is why I get so wiggy when Ben mounts someone or Mortimer puts his mouth on someone. So far, though, they've been absolutely fine. And I'm feeling like a better owner. There's really only one thing I'm worried about when I take them now: all those gay dogs.
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