My husband and I have recently
downsized from a four bedroom home in the suburbs to a two bedroom condo
downtown. We have done this to
“simplify” our lives, but also to prove to ourselves and our families that we
are still young and hip enough to enjoy an urban lifestyle. A lifestyle that puts us within walking
distance of numerous restaurants, galleries, and bars, not to mention a
neighbor who sings Italian arias while strolling with his dog, and Carl, the
local homeless man, who pushes his shopping cart down the middle of the street
every morning at eight o’clock.
When my three grown children
announced they would be spending Christmas with us in our new place, we
enthusiastically looked forward to showing them our hip new crib. When they announced they would also be
bringing their dogs, I was less enthusiastic.
“Oh, we’ll be fine,” my husband said, indicating I was being overly
dramatic.
My son had recently adopted what he
called a Lemon Beagle, which I had never heard of, that was going to be flying
in with him from San Francisco.
“So you’ll be carrying him on the
plane?” I said, imagining a cute spotted puppy that would fit neatly between
his feet.
“Oh no,” he said. “I’ll have to crate him.” And then he quickly changed the subject.
Imagine my surprise when, three
weeks later, I saw him unloading what appeared to be an elephant crate from the
back of my car. My husband had driven
down to Atlanta to pick up my son and his Lemon Beagle, which is apparently
code for a cross between a pit bull and a Great Dane.
His name was Finn and he was
adorable but clumsy, knocking over furniture with his tail which he swung
behind him with the velocity of a bull whip.
My dog, Yoshi, gave him a wide berth.
I rose early the next morning determined
to take Finn and Yoshi for a walk.
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
my husband said, sipping his coffee at the breakfast bar.
Undaunted, I set out. What I soon learned is that, although it’s
relatively easy to walk one dog on a leash, it is less easy to walk two. Especially two that have a combined weight of
well over one hundred pounds. Dogs in a
pack constantly jostle for dominance, trying to be the lead dog. Added to the fact that I was walking both on
retractable leashes that were quickly entangled, I soon found myself being
dragged along the sidewalk like a musher racing across the frozen tundra of the
Alaskan Iditarod.
This would have been enough to
discourage any sane person, but I was determined to go on. I had a point to prove. I wasn’t the same old Shrinking Violet I had
once been; I now ate oatmeal and miso soup for breakfast, stayed away from
saturated fats and dairy, and meditated twice a day. I could handle walking two dogs along a city
street.
It was in the second block that the
real trouble began.
By now my pulse had begun to pound
ominously in my ears. My breathing was
ragged and strained. We scooted past a
row of neat bungalows set back slightly from the sidewalk. The middle house had a neatly manicured lawn,
with baskets of flowers and ferns set out strategically around the base of a
large oak tree. Various whirligigs spun
in the breeze, and a ring of colorful garden gnomes peeked roguishly from
between the baskets of ferns and flowers.
It was the kind of yard that announces, “No Dogs Allowed” by its very neatness.
Finn, who had apparently never seen
a garden gnome, decided he didn’t like the looks of these strange creatures,
and lunged suddenly to the right, bellowing and knocking over baskets and whirligigs
with his tail. Yoshi sprang to the
left. I found myself being dragged,
spread-eagled, toward the massive oak and began to shout, “No, no.” Finn, panicked at the tone of my voice, began
now to run in circles, catching two of the larger ferns in his leash which he
dragged behind him like a conveyer belt.
“It’s okay, puppy, it’s okay,” I
shrilled, trying to calm him down. He
continued to run in circles, wrapping the retractable leash around his legs
until, finally, tied up like a rodeo calf, he lurched to a stop, and fell over. Taking advantage of his immobility, I glanced
over my shoulder to check on Yoshi.
He was taking a huge, steaming shit
in front of a basket of fake petunias.
It was at this moment that I
realized my left arm was numb and one eye was fluttering like a bad circuit. It occurred to me that I might be in the
throes of a medical emergency. I
imagined the couple who owned the house returning in the evening to the
wreckage of their carefully-tended yard.
I imagined garden gnomes and ferns and whirligigs scattered in disarray,
two dogs hog-tied and squealing, and a middle-aged woman, dead of an apparent
heart attack, face down on the lawn.
I fell on my knees, hard, at the
base of the tree, and began hurriedly to set up the fallen gnomes and fern
baskets. Then I gathered Yoshi’s warm
excrement in a plastic baggie, untied Finn, and turned and limped quickly for
home.
I imagined the couple returning
home to find that their garden gnomes had been vandalized, checking their
surveillance tape, and uploading it to YouTube, where it would become an
instant Internet sensation. I imagined
my children’s friends calling.
“Dude, isn’t that your mother?”
My husband was still sitting at the
breakfast bar when I limped in.
“That was quick,” he said. “Did you have a nice walk?”
I said nothing, handing him the
leashes, and turning, hobbled toward the bedroom to take a nice long nap.