Monday, August 17, 2009

Crazy Lady Next door: Part 2

Sunday morning, I'm in the office chatting with my hubby and I hear someone knock on the door very quietly. I almost didn't hear it, but it was just loud enough to make my little Doxie woof expectantly at the door. So, that confirmed an unannounced visitor. I'm not much for unexpected visitors and most my friends and family know to call first before knocking on our door, so I'm thinking it's a stranger and so I'm a little cautious when I go see who it is. I Don't ever open the door to someone I don't know. I actually will look through the window first and then open it, if I know who it is. So, when I saw it was our next door neighbor, I feel this twinge of annoyance. "Great...what does she want now?" After our very awkward conversation a few days before, I was certain she would never speak to us again, much less come over to our house, but here she is. But than again, it's very possible, she is coming over to apologize. It was really rude the way she came across and maybe she realized this as an afterthought and felt the need to say she was sorry. So, I open the door and smile and say good morning. She doesn't smile, but she says, "Good morning" politely in return. I think to myself I shouldn't be rude, so I open the door wider and say, "How are you, why don't you come in?" and then she finally smiles and comes in, while saying, "Well, I thought I would come over and talk to your husband about his dog." My smile fades, but I make sure not to frown and this is very hard for me. I respond, "Well, he's in the office. Why don't you have a seat and I'll go get him and we'll have a talk." She goes and sits on the love seat facing at an angle toward our couch and when I see that she's comfortable, I decide to, first, get Daughter and tell her that Mrs. (shall we call her) Whatsername is here if she would like to come say hi, to which Daughter jumps up from playing with her toys and runs into the living room to say hello very enthusiastically. Daughter and Mrs. Whatsername get along great, so that's the silver lining in this whole situation, but if things turn sour in the future it could be an added consequence, if it gets in the way of the two of them being friends. Anyways, I digress...I go into the office and tell Hubby that our neighbor is here to talk about his dog and he gives me this look like, "Are you frickin' kidding me right now?!?!" He was shirtless, as this is his house and he can be shirtless if he wants to be and he just gives this big sigh, not saying a word, but just giving me this look and I give him a look in return that seems to say, "No, I'm not kidding, this is FOR REAL. Get your hind end in there and get this lady to LEAVE!" So, then he mumbles to me as he gets up from his pet online project, "Fine. I'll go put on a shirt."all the while looking extremely peeved to have to be interrupted with this very inconvenient, unexpected and uninvited visitor. I go back into the living room prompty so as not to leave our guest alone for too long and I didn't want to make her feel unwelcome, tho she was. As I enter the living room to sit down on the couch across from her and make small talk while we wait, I see her holding my little dog. Dang.....this is not good. My immediate reaction was to go over and grab my dog away from her, so she wouldn't get any ideas about my dog. But I know I can't do that without coming off really crazy and rude, so I sit down and smile at her with my plastic fake smile. A politician's smile. I just sit there and say what a beautiful day it's shaping up to be and I ask what their plans are for the day and she says,"Not much." Sure...just your diabolical plans to take my husband's dog, I think to myself, but that's not much...I think my dog sensed my feelings, because she actually jumped down off the couch and come to sit with me. I scoop her up, protectively, and hold on tight and my neighbor's just staring at my dog. I'm not really happy about this. Why does she have to look at my dog like that? It's the same way she looks at Bridget. Ugh! Of course, she completely ignores our two cats. I sense she has no desire for felines, so I can at least set aside my worry for them. Hubby comes walking slowly in...Finally, Captain Save The Day is here! He's just dragging his feet and he gives her a weak smile and says his Goodmornings and how are you's and then he plunks down on the couch looking defeated. I can tell he doesn't want to deal with this right now and is very much tired of having to tell this lady she can't have his dog. This subject has been worn down enough. There was no small talk before she got down to business. She immediately set in on my poor husband, drawing out the same story she did on me about how much she loves his dog and how much her grown Daughter loves his Dog and how much her Daughter wants his dog, and that she would provide the best for the dog and blah, blah, blah...(same story, different day) and then she added in the usual subtle insults here and there trying to make it look like they could take so much better care of Bridget than we ever could. And THEN she tried a new twist the the old scheme. She subtly threatend us. Not in an obvious way, but in much the same way she was trying to make us feel inferior in pet care to her. She said, "I noticed you had her tied out one day when you all were gone for a few hours." What does she do, sit by the window and spy on us all day? "Yes," my husband replies calmly "We were out of town for the day and we didn't have anyone to come watch her or let her out to go to the bathroom, so we bought a cable tie out and a stake at PetSmart and tethered her for a few hours. Don't worry, Mrs. Whatshername, she was fine for just a few hours. She had her dog house right there, it was under that big tree and she had access to her water and food bowl. It's a thirty foot cable, so she had plenty of room to get around. She was just fine, don't worry." I'm all the while looking at this crazy lady, perched on our seat cushion, who is trying to guilt us and I'm wanting this lady to leave now. Don't let the door hit you on the way out! Man, I was loosing my patience. I was actually just about to get up and go see what Daugther was doing, just so I could calm down. Let my husband deal with her and he does such a fine job in dealing with incouragable folks, I knew he could handle her just as well. But just as I was about to start to get up she then says, "Well, I know you don't think it's such a big deal, but there is an ordinance against chaining up your dogs and I don't think animal control would be very forgiving. I just wanted to let you know. It was just put into effect, so..." I'm frozen and so is my husband and we just stare at her. Is she threatening us? Is this woman in our home threatening us?!?! Now, this lady is trying to play the abuse and neglect card on us! Anyone who knows us and anyone who knows me, knows our pets are not abused and neglected. I was fuming. She said again, "Are you sure you don't want to give your dog up?" My husband says with malice in his voice, "No, I do not. She is well taken care of, as you can see." She then looks at me and then at my Doxi and says, " You have such a sweet little dog." I said, "Thank you, she is sweet." then she says," Would you be willing to give her up?" I'm not even hiding my anger at this point when I say, "No, I LOVE my dog. Why don't you come here in the kitchen for a minute." And she looks at me quizzically. I hop up offthe couch and come stand in front of her and I say, " Really. Come on. I want you to see something." I wait for her to get up. She slowly gets up with some hesitancy and the expression on her face looks a bit alarmed. Good. Maybe she needs some abrasiveness to get the point across. I then turn my back on her and walk in the kitchen and she follows. I jutt my finger out and point at Lacee's house first and say, "Here is my dog's house. Here is her food bowl. Here is her water bowl." All the while, I'm pointing at everything....I continue," As you can see, it's all full and the water is clean." I walk over to a cabnet and open it, "Here is all the dog supplies. Flea spray, flea drops, vitamins, dog brushes, shampoo and leashes." I walk over to a basket in the corner and point to it "Here are all the dogs toys and chewies. See? Look at all of my dog's clothes that I dress her up in. She is spoiled rotten. She is healthy and loved. I am not giving her up. She is mine. I have had her for five years and I plan on loving her and caring for her for at least ten more years. She is not going anywhere. She is MINE." I then strut out of the kitchen and sit back on the couch, holding my dog tightly with a smug look on my face. I figured I better nip her idea of having my dog in the bud now before she got to entertaining the idea and starting in on me. I am all out of niceness for this lady and I ran out of patience a long time ago. This lady threatened us when she didn't get her way and she crossed the line, all the while in our own home. I wasn't going to pretend to be nice to her after this. She just looks at me with this look of shock on her face and then nods quietly and says nothing. She doesn't go back to the loveseat to sit across from us, but heads for the door and says, "Well, I just thought I would ask...." She stopped ASKING a long time ago. She's resorted to a more dirty approach and we weren't having it anymore. My husband and I both alternately say in so many words, "Ok, thanks and we'll see you later. Have a nice day. Goodbye." She shut the door behind her. My husband doesn't say a word, but just gets up and goes back in his office. I'm sitting there by myself mulling over the whole scenareo from beginning to end and not regretting my lil closing statement with that lady one bit. I then get up and go into the office and hubby and I re live the whole thing and just chat about how incredibly insane this all was and we just couldn't believe this lady had the cajones to come over here and try to sway us the way she did. Wow....So, we won't be leaving our dog unattended in the backyard for quite a while to come. Every time I let both the dogs out to do their business or excercise, I sit at the kitchen window and watch them. I am even more worried that either one of them will be stolen. And Heaven forbid we tie our hubby's dog out for a few hours if we are away. I can just see the evil old lady just spying at her window, waiting for the right moment when we are away to either kidnap or call in the Animal control...I actually called the animal control AND the humane society today and I asked them if it was ok if I tied out my dog for a few hours if we couldn't be there to watch them and they both said as long as it wasn't for very long, they had shade, water, food and shelter, no problem. So, I'm not worried about the animal control, but I'm certainly worried about dogs being stolen. This lady is insane....

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