Rolling Out the Barrel……...

 

It was one of those Saturday mornings you dream of…..dreaming!  Being young parents, we had cousin company until well after midnight and everyone had a truly fun time; lots to eat and lots of laughs.  The kids are finally old enough to play on their own and leave the grownups to their Dominos and their own conversation.  The relatives were up just as late as us and had gone home just as tired.  Surely, that would mean no early phone calls in the morning.  We had no events on the calendar and there was enough leftovers from the party to feed us without additional cooking….even donuts for brunch.  Irwin and the girls pitched in for a quick 10-minute pick-up session while I did a job on the kitchen.  Maybe, just maybe “manana” was going to be one of those mornings you dream of.

 Oh, how I love that first cool-snap of Autumn when the temperature will allow you to sleep with the windows open and even be able to pull up a blanket about 3 or 4 in the morning.  I did make a cover call about that time just to see that our girls were snuggled in….then trotted back to my own huddle.  My mind was as clear as my calendar which allowed me to fall quickly back into oblivion.

Suddenly, a burst of growling and barking jolted us all… and me from horizontal to vertical in one second flat…before I had a chance to get my eyes open!  It made the “racket that made such a clatter” from The Night Before Christmas seem like a ballet.  In unison, Irwin and I shouted, “What???” …..and as if by bat radar, we both made a bee-line for the girls’ room.  I don’t know what we thought the noise was coming from, but we both had the same thought, “Get it….and kill it!”  It would have been better if….

(1) … we had stopped to turn on a light.

(2) … we (Irwin and I) both ran at the same speed.

(3) … the hall did not have so many 90-degree turns.

(4) … the girls weren’t running in the opposite direction.

(5) … and they didn’t scream so loud that they could hear us yelling!

Oh, yes….and  (6) now we make sure the girls completely empty their bladders before going to bed.  We didn’t slip all the way to the floor because we had not gained full speed back after Irwin ran over me trying to run in the dark.   All, this and we still had not killed the “dragon”!

The growling had turned to barking.  Now, they (who’s ever, whatever) was barking furiously trying to get into the seasonably open screened window at the girls’ bedroom because of all the noise, banging, and yelling INSIDE the house.  Irwin took a very large bucket of water outside to throw on the “monsters” while I heated up a pot of cocoa to calm the nerves and tremors.

To break the fear-thoughts, I smiled one of Mommy’s favorite “I’ve got a great idea” smiles, “Let’s have a donut with our hot cocoa!”  About that time, Dad made his re-entry wearing as much water as the new neighbor’s dogs.  When he saw that the dogs had been dumpster-diving in our garbage cans, he had reached around for the broom beside the backdoor and upset his bucket of water.  He said that as he approached the angry dogs armed only with enough water to make them angrier, he thought that perhaps the broom would scold them a bit more severely.

Well, now that the girls were full of all tomorrow’s donuts and cocoa…..and our new neighbor’s dogs are full of our garbage….and daylight has found its way to Greenlee Street…. and the sound of the newspaper hitting the front door has captured Irwin’s attention; the alley cat has headed to the shower while I put on our early Saturday morning coffee.

The following Saturday, completed a full week of dining and entertaining the new neighbor’s dogs, plus there was a daily cleanup and re-bagging of our own nasty garbage. We had tried the water treatment, information exchange (with my sweetest smile) with the new neighbors, with no success.  Even contacting the animal control department (who said that we would have to catch the animals. Then, and only then would they come pick them up).  Wrapping them with a satin bow was my sarcastic addition.  I borrowed my brother’s toy B-B-gun, not intending hurt or harm to the dogs….just wanting to sting them into fear.

Our unfenced backyard had a gentle slope from the right to the left….giving enough height to get a good shot from behind the big Chinaberry tree if they returned.  NO! Not if they returned…but when! 

About 4:45 A.M., I heard the rumpus begin with the garbage cans and the two dogs quarreling over which one would get the prize pieces.  I immediately emerged at the back door with the mindset and appearance of Rambo.  Un-noticed by Grizzly or White Fang, I crossed from the backdoor to the Chinaberry tree.  A nip in the air had reminded me that in my haste I had neither remembered my shoes nor my robe….(Rambo never stopped to put a robe over his pajamas!) …after all, this couldn’t take longer than a couple of minutes.

“My precious little girls had to be protected!  My loving husband had to get his rest from these pests!” I whispered as I tried to convince myself that what I was doing was my civic duty as an upstanding citizen of Tarrant County, and of the United States of America! (….I didn’t have enough hands to carry a B.B.-gun and wave the American flag!)

By dawn’s first light, I planted my feet firmly and placed the gun in the fork of the lowest limb.  One of the dogs had both front paws over the edge of a metal trash can while the other already had his bag drug out of the can and was dragging it around the yard strewing garbage four feet on both sides of him as he slung the bag from left to right.  The dark one (which we called Grizzly) had his teeth in the bag ripping it into shreds….however; he was not yet proficient enough to pull the bag from the can.  Both were at an angle where I could not get aim at their rumps, not wanting to endanger their heads.

Judge stays inside his own fence....and I do love dogs.

As the sun’s first rays merged over the trees, I was still focused on the mischievous dogs, determined to ward off these two pests.  Finally, White Fang moved around to begin a second course, giving me a clear shot.  He lowered his head just inside the top of the overturned can and I squeezed the trigger hitting him square on the rump under the tail.   He jumped!!!  The angle of his head was so that the momentum of his jump took him into the can.  He was so frightened that he began to yelp and howl….INSIDE the garbage can.  He had no place to go and began to try to get out.  This thrust was enough to jolt the can into motion….downhill!   The can bumped across Grizzly back, frightening him into a tailspin.  He, too, began to howl, jump and yelp.  The can picked up momentum into a rushing rolling bulldozer…..a rushing rolling screaming bulldozer! 

The can bounced off the curb with a crash onto the paved street and kept rolling faster and faster with the dog running inside the can around and around; jumped the curb across the street; rolled across the neighbor’s yard; and down the next street.  White Fang was frantically chasing and barking, in hot pursuit of the big round “monster” that hit him on the rump.

My smile was back!  I turned to go back into the house and noticed that all the commotion had alerted every neighbor, in every direction.  Now, I had to transform this barefoot Rambo in pink pajamas, back into a sweet innocent Doris Day complete with singing “Que Sera, Sera” until I could cross from the Chinaberry tree all the way to the backdoor.

We don’t ever go back to our old neighborhood any more.