Friday, August 19, 2005
Hot teenage vigilante action
There are things I will miss when I move from here - the butcher who sells me brilliant steak and chats to me like it's 1953; the heartbreaking sunsets; the thousand small things that I don't even appreciate now. My grumbling hardened soul does soften a bit when people display the lovely biscuit-tin traits of friendliness towards strangers in a way you don't get elsewhere. However, for the most part I will wave a happy one-fingered farewell to the assorted arseholes who occasionally seem to be the only inhabitants of this part of the country.
So I was blearily writing my Thing stuff yesterday evening when something thudded against the window by my desk, making me leap out of my chair. Dog going apeshit. I turned to see something blue disappearing around the corner. On another night I might have just seethed for a minute and got back to work, after checking what it was that had hit - I did go into the yard and look, but found nothing. It wasn't a stone, but it certainly wasn't a feather. On this night, I'm afraid, I was propelled by the steam coming from some kind of hormone-furnace out into the alley.
I took the dog - who was beside himself, given that he doesn't get out much - and felt mildly guilty. See, I took him because I feel less vulnerable, more confident, with a massive beast in traditional warning colours wriggling like a hooked shark on a lead beside me. Not that he'd be any good if I was attacked - he'd be more likely to bite me, take the side of the probable winner - but he looks the part. And I know that a lot of people choose their dogs for this very purpose i.e. to look 'ard. And I'm disgusted to have a kernel of that in me. But then I'm not a gangling baseball-capped arse in Nikes on probation, shelling out on big spiked collars and mean ole leather-and-brass harnesses and then moaning about the price of nasty processed tinned dog non-meat; I am a girl. A silly girl who can't leave well alone.
So I went stomping down the alley into the bigger backstreet, and clocked a couple of 12-year-olds and probably a 14-year-old, two in blue tops, a hundred yards away. One of them was messing with what looked like an enormous, lit Roman Candle. Great. I'd walked in their direction, but as they went round the corner I went back in the direction of the house. I looked around and they were still pissing about in the alley. I stood there for about five minutes, wondering what the falafel I was doing. The dog snoffled around by my feet. I couldn't go and talk to them while they had small incendiary devices on them. Even if they hadn't had bomblets, I couldn't - they'd just laugh, at best. I resented being made to feel angry and anxious by these children, and to be unable to just go up to them and say 'Oi' compounded it. But what to do? Ignore it and they win. Go and get involved and antagonise them and they just do it more, and still win. You can't influence them, can't make them feel anything, there's no point at all in trying. There's that quote about how all it takes for bad shit to prevail is for good people to do nothing - well, how about if good people do laughably provactive retaliatory things, will that do in lieu of actual nothing? Oh good.
Meanwhile, the dog relieved himself and I bagged it, stood there swinging the tied-off bag to and fro from a finger. Eventually the kids noticed I was still standing there. I'd started to go back to the house, thinking this was nonsense. One shouted "excuuuuse meehhhh" in a sort of posh-Cartman voice. So I swivelled round and held up the bag. I'd brought the muscle along for confidence, but in the end I had to get it from his by-product.
"If you throw any more shit at my window I'll throw some shit at you," I said. Then I walked briskly around the corner, and once out of sight scuttled swiftly into the yard and into the house. Like a scaredy crab on a string.
They didn't say anything, which I fondly hoped meant they were gobsmacked. I would like to think I will be able to gobsmack some little shits in this wilderness period before I am old and will be able to gobsmack them just by saying 'cunt'.
Today I was able at last to let the dog stretch his legs in the up-for-sale fields. He galloped in big loops with a look of joy on his stupid head. I did keep putting him back on the lead - barks were drifting over from the park a mile or so away, but I couldn't be sure where they were coming from. The stakes are pretty high - if K were surprised by another dog, and had a go, and the other dog came off worse (or even if it didn't have a mark), I'd probably lose him. It's not like owning a Jack Russell, which pound for pound are generally more aggressive than Rotts; not having the capacity to do the damage, they rarely get reported. It's very unlikely that we'd run into another dog in the fields, and also unlikely that he'd do any damage, but I feel like it's such a risk, such a fine line between happy normality and everything going to bollocks. Current law essentially allows anyone to phone the police, complain that a big black dog looks a bit tidy, and they can come and march your dog out pretty much indefinitely.
Anyway, the dog had a few minutes to actually be a dog for once, and came home with tongue dragging along the pavement, all fulfilled. I feel awful at times like this that he can't live a full life, but I must remind myself that given the way he's turned out, the way he's made, there are things he cannot do because he will do himself harm. (Wonder why we get on so well.)
So, without going all mumsy and feeding him liver every day, I have to just make the rest of his life as good as it can be. I'll probably have to remind myself of this every once in a while for the rest of his life, but hopefully I won't forget entirely that he's pretty happy. Dogs just don't know what's going on. They can get bored, even depressed, but they don't understand their situation in any broader sense. K's whole world is made when he gets a megachew; it's wonderful to see how his cup runneth over at the smallest thing. He does not comprehend that he is losing out on anything whatsoever. I know that there is no effort involved in that, he hasn't worked to achieve inner peace or to come to terms with his own fuck-ups ('My name is Kaine . . .um, I have ah, anger issues I need to work through.' 'Hi, Kaine!'), but I love him for this.
I never thought I'd own what would be considered an aggressive dog, a problem dog, a dog that others would have had put down - but who, precisely, was I kidding with that? It was fucking inevitable from the age of about five. Big black thing leaps seven feet off the ground, bouncing off the walls of his kennel, barking like Cerberus on crack - nice respectable people move swiftly on to the sad-eyed mongrels further down the aisle, Bee stops transfixed, puts nose through mesh, thinks "awwww, cutiepie". Their deathmutt, my diddums. It's a wonder I haven't yet married a giant thug and given birth to a murderer.
Yes, yes, face. I'm not writing about you anymore, you sod.
I'm not getting any more chancers looking for work or advice any more. It's bliss. And yet I feel strangely sad. Wait - no, that's just a bit of indigestion. Had a fun bit of email ping-pong earlier with some lost soul who'd found my site once, but didn't seem able to find or access it again, and asked me to cut and paste the prices stuff in. Then he spelt my name wrong despite my signing off with it four times already. It's wonderful to be able to help these people. Perhaps I should retrain as a nurse.
So I was blearily writing my Thing stuff yesterday evening when something thudded against the window by my desk, making me leap out of my chair. Dog going apeshit. I turned to see something blue disappearing around the corner. On another night I might have just seethed for a minute and got back to work, after checking what it was that had hit - I did go into the yard and look, but found nothing. It wasn't a stone, but it certainly wasn't a feather. On this night, I'm afraid, I was propelled by the steam coming from some kind of hormone-furnace out into the alley.
I took the dog - who was beside himself, given that he doesn't get out much - and felt mildly guilty. See, I took him because I feel less vulnerable, more confident, with a massive beast in traditional warning colours wriggling like a hooked shark on a lead beside me. Not that he'd be any good if I was attacked - he'd be more likely to bite me, take the side of the probable winner - but he looks the part. And I know that a lot of people choose their dogs for this very purpose i.e. to look 'ard. And I'm disgusted to have a kernel of that in me. But then I'm not a gangling baseball-capped arse in Nikes on probation, shelling out on big spiked collars and mean ole leather-and-brass harnesses and then moaning about the price of nasty processed tinned dog non-meat; I am a girl. A silly girl who can't leave well alone.
So I went stomping down the alley into the bigger backstreet, and clocked a couple of 12-year-olds and probably a 14-year-old, two in blue tops, a hundred yards away. One of them was messing with what looked like an enormous, lit Roman Candle. Great. I'd walked in their direction, but as they went round the corner I went back in the direction of the house. I looked around and they were still pissing about in the alley. I stood there for about five minutes, wondering what the falafel I was doing. The dog snoffled around by my feet. I couldn't go and talk to them while they had small incendiary devices on them. Even if they hadn't had bomblets, I couldn't - they'd just laugh, at best. I resented being made to feel angry and anxious by these children, and to be unable to just go up to them and say 'Oi' compounded it. But what to do? Ignore it and they win. Go and get involved and antagonise them and they just do it more, and still win. You can't influence them, can't make them feel anything, there's no point at all in trying. There's that quote about how all it takes for bad shit to prevail is for good people to do nothing - well, how about if good people do laughably provactive retaliatory things, will that do in lieu of actual nothing? Oh good.
Meanwhile, the dog relieved himself and I bagged it, stood there swinging the tied-off bag to and fro from a finger. Eventually the kids noticed I was still standing there. I'd started to go back to the house, thinking this was nonsense. One shouted "excuuuuse meehhhh" in a sort of posh-Cartman voice. So I swivelled round and held up the bag. I'd brought the muscle along for confidence, but in the end I had to get it from his by-product.
"If you throw any more shit at my window I'll throw some shit at you," I said. Then I walked briskly around the corner, and once out of sight scuttled swiftly into the yard and into the house. Like a scaredy crab on a string.
They didn't say anything, which I fondly hoped meant they were gobsmacked. I would like to think I will be able to gobsmack some little shits in this wilderness period before I am old and will be able to gobsmack them just by saying 'cunt'.
Today I was able at last to let the dog stretch his legs in the up-for-sale fields. He galloped in big loops with a look of joy on his stupid head. I did keep putting him back on the lead - barks were drifting over from the park a mile or so away, but I couldn't be sure where they were coming from. The stakes are pretty high - if K were surprised by another dog, and had a go, and the other dog came off worse (or even if it didn't have a mark), I'd probably lose him. It's not like owning a Jack Russell, which pound for pound are generally more aggressive than Rotts; not having the capacity to do the damage, they rarely get reported. It's very unlikely that we'd run into another dog in the fields, and also unlikely that he'd do any damage, but I feel like it's such a risk, such a fine line between happy normality and everything going to bollocks. Current law essentially allows anyone to phone the police, complain that a big black dog looks a bit tidy, and they can come and march your dog out pretty much indefinitely.
Anyway, the dog had a few minutes to actually be a dog for once, and came home with tongue dragging along the pavement, all fulfilled. I feel awful at times like this that he can't live a full life, but I must remind myself that given the way he's turned out, the way he's made, there are things he cannot do because he will do himself harm. (Wonder why we get on so well.)
So, without going all mumsy and feeding him liver every day, I have to just make the rest of his life as good as it can be. I'll probably have to remind myself of this every once in a while for the rest of his life, but hopefully I won't forget entirely that he's pretty happy. Dogs just don't know what's going on. They can get bored, even depressed, but they don't understand their situation in any broader sense. K's whole world is made when he gets a megachew; it's wonderful to see how his cup runneth over at the smallest thing. He does not comprehend that he is losing out on anything whatsoever. I know that there is no effort involved in that, he hasn't worked to achieve inner peace or to come to terms with his own fuck-ups ('My name is Kaine . . .um, I have ah, anger issues I need to work through.' 'Hi, Kaine!'), but I love him for this.
I never thought I'd own what would be considered an aggressive dog, a problem dog, a dog that others would have had put down - but who, precisely, was I kidding with that? It was fucking inevitable from the age of about five. Big black thing leaps seven feet off the ground, bouncing off the walls of his kennel, barking like Cerberus on crack - nice respectable people move swiftly on to the sad-eyed mongrels further down the aisle, Bee stops transfixed, puts nose through mesh, thinks "awwww, cutiepie". Their deathmutt, my diddums. It's a wonder I haven't yet married a giant thug and given birth to a murderer.
Yes, yes, face. I'm not writing about you anymore, you sod.
I'm not getting any more chancers looking for work or advice any more. It's bliss. And yet I feel strangely sad. Wait - no, that's just a bit of indigestion. Had a fun bit of email ping-pong earlier with some lost soul who'd found my site once, but didn't seem able to find or access it again, and asked me to cut and paste the prices stuff in. Then he spelt my name wrong despite my signing off with it four times already. It's wonderful to be able to help these people. Perhaps I should retrain as a nurse.
