Worse Than Dead Bunnies

This damn dog is going to be the death of me. Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration (although she did step on my foot this morning and it really, really hurts) but it's no exaggeration at all that she may very well get me booted from the family-friendly neighborhood.

I'll explain.

Yesterday morning, I patted myself on the back the whole hour long drive (another exaggeration) to my writers' date. (A new friend of mine from my writing class and I have been meeting every morning to sit and write. I'm flying along and it feels amazing to watch this piece get longer and longer. Not necessarily better and better, or more and more interesting, but for now we'll take long as a victory.)

On the way home I went to the gym.

Once I got home I polished off two projects and delivered them, before deadline, to happy little clients.

So, I thought mid-afternoon, I shall reward myself. I shall put on a bikini and sit in the sun and read my book, with my (parent's) beloved dog by my side. So I did. I even got a giant Diet Coke to take in the backyard with me, just to sweeten the deal.

It was bliss. Idyllic. The very picture of why people live in the suburbs.

For approximately five minutes.

It wasn't the bunnies that distracted her this time. It wasn't the incessant barking of the little shit dog that our neighbors tied to a tree and left outside for, apparently, ever.

It was the TruGreen guy.

Now, when Cokie went absolutely ballistic and started barking at the fence, I probably should have paid attention. The problem is, Cokie is the little dog who barked wolf, and she goes ballistic when the mailman drives by. When anyone drives by. When a butterfly flitters past. When nothing flitters past. So I let her bark, because that's what she does. She barks. I was reading and baking and sipping and wasn't to be bothered.

This is probably an important time to mention a seemingly unrelated fact, which is that I hate tan lines. More on that in a moment.

But even for Cokie this was sounding a bit extreme, so I forced myself to lift my heavy head and lower my heavy book, and to my surprise there was a man standing there. Creepy. Holding some kind of a hose. Disturbing. More disturbing though was the sudden lack of barking. "This seems backwards," I thought, as I stared up at this hose-wielding stranger who was standing in my backyard -- inside my fenced in backyard -- "Shouldn't Cokie be barking more when the intruder has infiltrated her space?"

"I'm here to spray the stuff." Seriously, dude?

So I got up, tied the loose straps of my bathing suit around my back, and responded in the only way possible, "That's what she said."

Hose Boy had left the gate open. The dog was gone. Some protector she was. I bolted out (another exaggeration. I sort of loped. That dog really does drive me nuts.) to the front yard just in time to catch Cokie's rear end hightailing it around the far side of the next door neighbor's yard. I won't bore you with the details, but chase ensued. I ran, she ran. She ran way faster than me.

Finally I went inside -- Hose Boy was still in the backyard, I'm fairly certain either casing the joint or peeing in our bushes -- and grabbed a leash, some cheese, and a pair of flip flops. When you put flip flops on, you have to look down at what you're doing. You know, to get your toes in there right. When I looked down, I didn't see toes. I saw boobs.

At some point, in the midst of my dog run that spanned several neighbors' yards, my bathing suit top had fallen down. I don't know when. I don't know where. I do know that Hose Boy didn't mention it. Or even seem to notice, which I found oddly insulting.

At the same moment that I decided I would never be able to leave the house again Cokie came meandering into the back yard -- Hose Boy gone, gate still open -- and settled down on the back porch, with a strangely smug "mission accomplished" look on her face.

Stupid dog. Stupid Hose Boy.