I have a big, noisy dog named Piper. Piper does her best to let me know what is going on around my house. I’ve gotten to the point where, just as you do with a baby, I know Piper’s barks. If she wants in it’s a woof, if she’s barking at the neighbors baby – who beats on the glass to get Pipers attention – it’s a friendly kind of arf. When she sees something that totally freaks her out, or she feels is a threat, the fur goes straight up and she gives the most throaty and menacing bark you never really want to hear.
I was poking around, getting ready to do something I’m supposed to do for a change, and I hear Piper going NUTS on the back porch. We have an invisible fence and Piper is petrified of going near the boundry, so I never really have to worry about her leaving the yard… except today. She LAUNCHED herself off the porch and hunkered down, teeth bared and fur up, barking the whole way around the side of the house! Naturally, I was afraid for whomever was on the side. I thought maybe the poor meter reader man was going to have to change his underwear. I called Piper inside and she came, but only because she knew this freak of nature was coming around to the front door.
I can see the front door from the back and thru the door’s frosted glass, I can see someone opening my storm door. I thought it looked as tho they were going to try and open the front door, but with Piper at the top of the steps (I have a split foyer) it would be an unwise choice. I went down to open the door, reaching around the main door to make sure the storm door is secure, because Pip has followed me down the steps and is snarling at the whatever is on the other side of the door. My storm door is a full glass door and as I open it, Piper gets a full view of the woman on the other side of the glass- abruptly stops barking, puts her tail between her legs, runs around my legs, knocks over some boxes in the foyer and bolts up the steps – where from a safe distance, she can begin to bwulf at this person. Obviously, this lady had freaked my dog out and who can blame her?!?
The poor lady had to be less than sane. Her hair was a sixties-ish beehive with a flip on the bottom. I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure it was a very old and brittle looking black wig. She was older, and dressed well enough, but what had made my dog flinch, had to be this woman’s version of make up. She was wearing(?) a thick black smudge of something in place of two eyebrows, another wobbly line of the same black stuff under her eyes and then she had PAINTED on with this same black substance – eyelashes – upper and lower around clear green eyes. FREAKY. Each of these lines were no less than a half inch thick… oh my. She was looking for her cousin, and going door to door asking people where her cousin may be. My first thought is, “she has to know how she looks.” The next thought is, “doesn’t she have a mirror?” My last thought is that I’m being a rotten person and that it’s obvious that this woman hasn’t a clue.
Lovely neighbor that I am, I sent her down to a family that has lived in the area much longer than I have so that their dog, also named Piper, could have the same experience as mine did.
See what fun it is to have a stay-at-home job?
Snippets and Tidbits 