Okay, okay. Three dog posts in a row. But that's IT, I swear.
The pants of our condo building are fancy. But the surrounding neighbourhood is a little sketchalicious. Buildings are boarded up. Folks sleep in the parks. Everyone seems to have their own shopping cart. There's a lot of free buttcrack. Regular crack, though - not free. Well - maybe your first time.
Walking the dog for a couple of hours a day means that we get to meet alot of the people in our neighbourhood, just like on Sesame Street. Sometimes, the dog and I accidentally stumble into people's homes, many of which are under trees. Emmy Lou is a big hit with the park people, because she likes to sniff them but resists being stroked. They respect her aloofness, I think. Also, how could they help but love her? She is a cute noodle.
After an incident yesterday morning when Emmy widdled on some cranky man's shopping cart, she and I decided to eschew our usual afternoon park promenade and sample the delights of the Keefer Place parkette, which is in a slightly fancier area and which features lots of beautiful trees and shrubbery and private little nooks. There is a lovely stream-like fountain meandering down the hill. There are grassy slopes and lots of places to sit. We were pretty excited to check it out.
It may surprise you to learn that I don't see a lot of penis in my day to day doings. But yesterday, Emmy and I were both treated to some free wang with some bonus hairy ass on the side, all with the soothing sound of flowing water in the background. I have to say that if I wanted to smoke crack or wave my cock around outdoors, I'd do it in the bucolic setting of the Keefer Place parkette too. Pretty much everywhere we went, people were enjoying a recreational pharmaceutical experience or whizzing against a tree. Emmy joined in enthusiastically.
As we reached the other end of the park, we ran into the people we thought we'd see in this area. They were huddled together in fear of the riff-raff - slim ladies with their pugs on extenda-leashes in one hand and Starbucks coffee drinks in the other. It was at the feet of one of these ladies that Emmy decided it was time to crap heavily. Shockingly, we made no friends in that part of the park.
Emmy passed out when we got home and I was glad, for it was time for me to try leaving her alone again, which I haven't done since last Thursday when I locked myself out of the house. As usual, I'd left an application until the last minute and I had to dash for the post-office in order to get it in on time. Emmy barely raised her head when I left and I congratulated myself on bringing my keys this time.
I got up to the post office only to discover that I had missed the driver and could no longer send an envelope over night. FOILED!! Furious with myself, I swore all the way home while trying to decide the best course of action. Should I hike all the way to the FedEx place downtown? Should I just give it up and try not to be such a procrastinating dork next time? How long had the dog been alone? What did that guy with the shopping cart just say about my shoes?
As I rounded the corner onto my street, I saw a UPS van. UPS had fucked us Wednesday by not showing up for a pick-up. The package was upstairs, in our condo. I suddenly had a brilliant idea.
Habib the UPS driver didn't really want to wait for me to go upstairs and come back down with the package and THEN wait for me to fill out a waybill for my envelope. But he was a good, kind man. I flew fatly into our building and burst into our apartment, greatly upsetting the dog as I snatched the UPS-bound package and took off again. Minutes later, Habib drove off with my two packages and I congratulated myself on being a FUCKING GENIUS. I strode triumphantly up to the door of our building and pressed the button on my key fob to get in. Then I pressed it again. Then I went to the other door and pressed it. Then I pressed it again.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" said Katr, as I called her at work to tell her that for the second week in a row I had locked myself out and the dog in. "Excuse me for just a sec - I'm going to need to call the Incredulity Hotline."
"It's not my fault!" I said, "it's the fob! The fob's not fucking working! And at least I have my cellphone this time!"
"The Incredulity Hotline's got me on hold. Can you believe it?"
As I settled down to wait for Katr to come home - EARLY - I was subject to alot of suspicious glances from the other residents of our building. None of them looked me in the eye, even the ones I'd seen before. And they were all extremely careful to make sure that they closed the door behind them so that I couldn't follow them inside. At first I didn't think much of it - I can't get up to our floor without the key fob anyway, so merely getting into the lobby was of no use to me. But it slowly began to dawn on me that they were afraid. Afraid that the sweaty, wild-eyed creampuff with the dirty feet and the novelty purse was sitting dangerously close to the door. Afraid that if they let their guard down, I might get in and fill my shopping cart with the contents of their homes.
I was tempted to rush the door, just to see what would happen. But before I could choose the right victim, Katr strolled into view and halted my nefarious plans.
"Hi."
"Hi."
"Sooo, uh . . . is this going to be a weekly thing?"
"You like it."
So for the next 5 weeks anyway, it seems our Thursdays will go like this:
- Roro locks herself out of the goddamn apartment
- Emmy tries to eat the pug at dog obedience class
- Katr and I celebrate with take-out from the Trutch St. Swiss Chalet
It's going to be a fabulous summer.
