The Dogs Are Gone

Well, the positive thinking completely worked. I spoke to the neighbors today and it's official: the dogs are gone! I don't want to say this is the happiest I've ever been but I will say some of us have been skipping around the backyard, singing for joy. And by "some of us" I mean me, Sassy and Bubba. Not that Opie's not also happy but he keeps saying things like "I hope the neighbors CAN'T HEAR YOU" which is somewhat less celebratory.

Still, since the neighbors don't (as far as I know) read this blog, I thought I'd share our favorite little ditty, sung to the tune of The Wicked Witch is Dead 

(We're all about the parodies here at The Yates Esates!)

The Dogs Are Gone

Ding dong the dogs are gone! 

Not our dogs, 

The neighbors dogs! 

Ding dong the neighbors dogs are gone!

A nicer house,

A bigger yard

Good for all

Oh, thank you Lord! 

Ding dong the neighbors dogs are gone!

Wag your tails

Raise your paws

Catch a treat

In open jaws

Ding dong the neighbors dogs are gone!

The Power of Positive Thinking -- I Hope!

So here’s something you may already have realized about me: I’m a little weird about my dogs.

Maybe this is because Opie and I weren’t able to have children. Maybe it’s because I work from home and I spend more time with them than with people.  Or maybe it’s because I have somehow been blessed with creatures that aren’t really animals but special, possibly human, souls trapped in canine bodies who need unlimited love and dedication to reach their full potential.

It’s really hard to say.  

My point is, I’m a little weird about my dogs.

 This has, upon occasion, caused a few  problems with the neighbors who also have dogs... but who seem to believe these are “pets” that live outdoors not “cherished members of the family with more personality than most people I know.”

The situation has not been helped by the fact it’s pretty volatile over there at the neighbors' house. When I first moved in, it was: the woman who owns the house (let's call her D), her mother, her daughter, the daughter’s five children, and occasionally the daughter’s boyfriend. Then one of the five kids got pregnant, had a baby and her boyfriend moved in for a bit.  Through the years, there’s been a lot of moving in and out, a frequent police presence, another baby, one death (the elderly great-grandma), and a variety of drama. 

Finally, the daughter and 3 of her kids moved out, the girl who had gotten pregnant moved back in bringing her husband and their 2 kiddos and things calmed down immensely—they began fixing up the house and yard and the police have only been over there once in the last 2 years.

The only problem is,  the girl and her husband (I’ll call them  A&B) brought their two monster pit bull mixes with them...and they couldn’t have them in the house because their two dogs didn’t get along with the dog that already lives there – this monster sized Bull Mastiff named Lola. AKA The Reason We Built A Privacy Fence Around Our Yard In The First Place. (You can read about that little adventure here)

I hate these two new dogs with the fire of 1000 Suns.  They’re ALWAYS outside(unless it’s crazy cold), they bark all the time, if I go near the fence to weed the flowerbeds or work on the landscaping or anything, they go crazy and charge into it smashing their huge pitbull bodies up against our fence.

And they hate Sassy.

Plus, I’m pretty sure they think she’s food.

Sassy, of course, does not believe she’s food.

She also doesn’t believe she’s a dog… she’s pretty convinced she is 7 1/2 pounds of fur-covered steel and she’s sure she could take both those mongrels with one paw tied behind her back.

This is her vicious face -- pretty scary, right?!

So when we go out in the yard, she starts barking at them, they bark at her and start flinging themselves against the fence even more, hoping to knock it down and eat her. Unfazed, she flings herself against our side of the fence so she can get to their yard and show them who’s boss.

Which is when Bubba starts barking, in case anyone is under the impression that he, too, is food. And I start screaming all the curse words I know.

It’s great fun.

At first I tried to handle this with maturity, I really did. We started putting Sassy on a long lead when we were outside so she couldn’t get too close to the fence and I changed the landscaping...I even, acting on the theory that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, took over a whole bunch of lilies from my yard that D has admired for years and helped her plant them along the fence line on her side in order to keep the dogs back.

Unfortunately, none of that really worked. And one day last summer, as I was out in the yard by myself, the horrible dogs came running up to the fence, crashed into it as usual....and then I looked down and noticed half a muzzle working its way into our yard.

Because, unbeknownst to anyone, they had started digging under the fence like some Chapo-inspired murderous dog-eating-dog tunnelers, intent on devouring my baby.

We should all probably take a minute and feel really sorry for Opie who was understandably confused and disconcerted when I came storming into the house screaming about honey...and how we were done with honey and how the neighbors could do various things with honey that are definitely obscene and perhaps not all anatomically possible.

“I’m done! Do you hear me!” I shouted. “And I’m done being nice! I’m going over there and I’m letting them know that if those monsters put 1 paw on our property, I will kill them! I mean it, they are DEAD!”

At which time Opie pointed out:

1. We aren’t really well-stocked with the type of weaponry that could take down two dogs of the pit bull persuasion...and he’s right, the only gun we have in this house shoots water.

2. When spiders or other creatures find their way into our house, I often make him take them outside and release them rather than kill them so even if we had a weapon, the odds of me being able to unload into a dog that wasn’t actually attacking, were basically non-existent.

3. Considering the police activity etc. that we’ve witnessed next door and my lack of anything resembling fighting skills, I shouldn’t go confront the neighbors until we could all be certain I wouldn’t start screaming threats I couldn’t possibly back up.

Which, honestly, took about 24 hours. But I finally went over them, talked to them as calmly as I could while pointing out the damage and they’ve tried to keep the dogs in line. It’s been a little better but still miles away from good.

So, why do I even bring this up?

Because someone over there is moving!!!

We’ve seen them loading boxes and furniture, watched the various comings and goings for the last few days and we know SOMEONE is moving. We just don’t know who.

They haven’t had it up for sale, so we assume that EVERYONE isn’t moving but I’m going crazy trying to figure out if we’re finally going to be free of these ferocious Fidos!

D is getting older and has some health issues so she could be moving to a smaller place...but it’s her house and she’s lived there for ages...would she just GIVE it to her granddaughter?

On the other hand,  A&B have been working on the house a ton, spending lots of their own money and putting in lots of labor to fix it up. They’ve put in hardwood floors, redone the bathroom, fixed up the yard...would they just move and leave all that behind?

This has been going on since last Friday and it’s killing me! It’s also killing Opie because I keep texting him at work with fascinating updates about what’s being moved and who’s moving it.

I don’t want to imply that I stand at the window all day, peering into their yard with binoculars like some kind of psycho stalker...but that’s mostly because I don’t need binoculars. I can see the whole yard from the window in our guest room.

Two days ago, the dog house disappeared but not the dogs...are A&B they waiting to take the dogs until they get settled? Are they leaving the dogs with D and she’s decided to let them be indoor dogs so she doesn’t need the dog house?

Aaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!

Anyway, this is where you all come in. Now that I’ve got my hopes up, I can’t stop thinking about how cool life would be if those dogs lived somewhere else. I don’t want bad things to befall these dogs, I just want them to take their huge, horrible selves somewhere else—preferably someplace where there aren’t small, feisty, mistaken-for-food dogs around.

So, I need you all to take a minute (or more!) tonight to pray or send good thoughts and positive energy that the dogs are finally moving....that we’ll be free of these Horrifying Hounds, these Cursed Canines, these Dastardly Dogs!

If we all focus on it, I know we can make it happen!

The Mysterious Mystery

Well it's Halloween so that makes me actually kind of happy to report that we have a very mysterious mystery that is mystifying us here at the Yates Estates.

And when I say we,  I am being a touch expansive as Opie is only moderately interested in the aforementioned mystery and refuses to engage in long texting discussions of it while he's at work.

But I digress...

Here's what's going on:

Two weeks ago Opie and I came home from visiting our family in Illinois and realized that we had been booed. This sounds awful but is actually really fun.

Someone left us a cute Halloween bag of treats anonymously with the instructions to pass it forward in a manner of a secret Santa only with a Halloween theme. Apparently this is been going on in office buildings and neighborhoods for years and I had no idea!! (You can read all about it here).

Anyway like I said, really fun! And it was easy to decide who I was going to boo:

1. The annoying little girl next door who, although she is incredibly annoying, would get a real charge out of the booing and it's always fun to make little kids happy.

2. The new neighbors across the street so they'd think the neighborhood is fun and welcoming.

So I got two cute treat bags, filled them up, and snuck over to the respective houses, hanging the bags in plain sight. Then I retreated to the safety of my living room, got out the good old binoculars, and waited for everyone to discover the booing.

The little girl found hers first and responded with an appropriate amount of not at all annoying good cheer.

The other neighbors left theirs hanging outside.

For days.

Actually, it's been on their mailbox for TWO WEEKS.

How can they possibly KEEP

MISSING this bag????

"This is a disaster!" I told Opie after the first few days had passed. "What if they're out of town? What if instead of welcoming them to the neighborhood, I just alerted any thieves in the vicinity that they're not home? What if they get robbed?"

"Maybe you should just sneak across the street and get it back." he suggested.

Unfortunately , I'm no lawyer but I watch A LOT of Judge Judy, and that's kind of the same thing. So I know that, legally, once a gift has been given it becomes the property of the giftee not the gifter. So, taking the bag back now would be stealing.

Besides that, my life is really weird. And I just know that if I sneak over there to retrieve said bag, The neighbors will, no doubt, open the door the second I put my hand on it and demand to know what I'm doing. At which point I will panic,  yell profanities, and flee back across the street.

Which doesn't exactly scream welcome to the neighborhood.

It would be better, I decided, to just be grateful that the booing  is anonymous and hope that the neighbors don't get robbed or, failing that, hope they never figure out I was the one Who inadvertently set them up.

And then the plot thickened!

Because a few days ago I saw a huge Salvation Army donation truck pull up in front of their house... and those trucks only come when called... and it stayed there a significant amount of time...I couldn't see the front door because the huge truck was in the way, but it was pretty obvious that someone is home over there.

And they still didn't pick up the bag!!!

"Now, this is really weird!" I yelled at Opie. "Why in the world wouldn't they pick up the bag? Are they some kind of ultra-religious anti-Halloween fanatics? Do they think people in the neighborhood just come by and add additional decorations to the house? What is going on?!"

At which point Opie, who I can usually count on to be the calming voice of reason in these situations, let me down. "Maybe it was a fake truck." he said. "Maybe the people in the Salvation Army truck were there to rob them."

The problem with Opie's reaction is that it just allowed me to fully unleash my inner crazy. "What if they killed them? What if the neighbors are in there DEAD? What if they've been murdered and when the police finally find them they'll see the bag on the front porch and decide the murderers left it there like some weird satanic message?"

"What are you talking about?" He demanded.

But it was too late to stop me. "And then they'll fingerprint the bag, find out I left it there and I'll go to PRISON FOR A CRIME I DIDN'T COMMIT!"

"That's not going to happen."

"You better hope not!" I shouted. "Because I'm not going to live long in prison. I'll make a joke at the wrong time or use sarcasm on the wrong person and BAM! I'll get shanked in the prison laundry!"

"How did we get from Halloween treats to you dying in prison?"

"You started it!" I told him loftily.

And now to the real dilemma: do I go over and retrieve the bag of treats which are, no doubt, melted and stale after 2 weeks on the porch? Do I call the police and suggest they take a look-see at the house in case it's been robbed and the occupants murdered? Or do I continue to sit in the living room with my binoculars like some sad stalker freak show, trying to get a good look in the neighbors' windows?

And why won't they  just take the damn bag inside?

Motivation to Move

We have to move.

I understand that this may seem sudden but once I have relayed the events of my day to you all, I think you will agree that it is time to drop everything and start researching realtors.

Here's what happened:

After a few days of rain, today was finally clear and since the ground is very soft at the moment, I decided that this would be the perfect time to go out and transplant this enormous shasta daisy that is taking over the rock garden. After moving it, I went back to smooth everything over etc. Unfortunately, while doing this I accidentally flipped over a rock and guess what was under it?

Another freaking snake, that's what!

One of those small snakes that for a hopeful minute I thought might just be the King Kong Godzilla Monster of earthworms but then, just like our last snake adventure, realized it was all coiled up, snake-like and evil.

And, of course, it had six inch fangs that were dripping blood and venom in copious amounts.

At this point, I screamed a very offensive curse word loudly enough that I'm pretty sure they could hear me at the church down the street.

My normal reaction would, obviously, be to run shrieking into the house....but Bubba was outside with me.  And because my life is one giant catastrophic coincidence after another, it was at this exact moment that a stray dog decided to meander up and bark at the dog next door.  Which means that Bubba ran over in a frenzy, jumping all over the exact same garden that had just given rise to the serpent from hell.

Therefore, I couldn't run inside because:

A. The snake could go slinking and sliming and slithering to some other spot in the yard, just waiting to jump out and attack another time.

B. I'm a firm believer in "No Dog Left Behind" and, since there is no calming Bubba when there is a stray dog in the vicinity and he was jumping around in a manner that just begged an evil predator to notice and attack, I knew I wouldn't get him in the house with me.

But I also couldn't just go into a frenzy of my own and started chopping the snake to pieces with my shovel like some whacked out snake serial killer because that's bad for my karma..

So, fueled by adrenaline and maternal instinct for the ridiculous dog next to me, I scooped up a huge shovelful of dirt with the snake on top, scurried to the other gate like a maniac, ran out to the front and flung the dirt and snake and rocks and whatnot into the street.

I'm not too proud to say I was crying and screaming all the curse words I've ever heard as I was running.

What the neighbors thought of this display is anyone's guess...but I suspect their opinion of me is none too flattering.

In summary, I have become the lunatic of the neighborhood, our rock garden is, apparently, a teeming hotbed of serpent activity, and I don't think I can live in these kind of conditions.

Fences, Fur-Babies and Future Felonies

If you're a longtime reader of this blog, you may remember a little incident Opie likes to call Turtle Gate 2013.  If you're new to this blog, no worries, you can read about it here or I can sum up it up in a couple of sentences:

The neighbor kids found a turtle. I freaked out.

In any case, I think poor Opie is longing for the carefree days of Turtle Gate because this week things with the neighbors took an epic turn for the worse.

Tuesday night the neighbors got a dog.

Which probably doesn't seem that dramatic to most of you. I mean lots of people get dogs. Opie and I have two dogs. And considering this is Oklahoma some of you might think I should be relieved that it’s just a dog and not a tiger.

It is interesting to note that my previous comment is not an exaggeration. Friends of ours who live a little further out in the country have a neighbor who has a lion.

A LION!

But I digress...

The point here is, our neighbors got a dog.

There are many reasons this is a problem.

First, these are people who can't be trusted to keep a turtle alive.

Second, I have no idea where they're going to stuff a dog into their house. It's the same size as ours (two or three bedrooms) and it's already occupied by at least eight people:

The woman who owns the house,  her daughter, the daughter's new boyfriend, four of the daughter's five children, and upon occasion, the oldest child's little boy.

Seriously, it's a little crowded over there.

Now don't get me wrong, I think it’s great for kids to have pets. 

But I also love dogs…so much so, in fact, that Opie is probably the only thing keeping me from being the subject of a really horrifying Animal Hoarders episode.

And these are people who are not good with dogs. The kids and their friends tease our dogs through the chain link fence to the point that before I let Bubba and Sassy out in our yard, I go out on the porch and do a quick reconnaissance to make sure the neighbor kids are inside.

And I know some of you are thinking “Well, now that they have a dog of their own, they’ll learn how to act around dogs.”

This is a great theory but completely unsupported by history. You see, the neighbors have already had three other dogs in the last ten years, all of which they have had to get rid of because the dogs started exhibiting behavior problems and couldn't be controlled anymore.  The last one attacked one of the girls and bit her in the face.

So, I don’t think this poor 4th dog is going to fare any better.  Especially since, in light of their history of animal control, they made the questionable decision to get a Bullmastiff.

(This isn't their actual dog, this is what it will look like when it's fully grown.
 And I'm not violating copyright, it was labeled for free use on Wikicommons)

A fact poor Opie became aware of when I stormed in the house screaming “Bullmastiff!” at the top of my lungs.

And then I spent a really entertaining hour looking up Bullmastiffs on the internet and yelling out interesting tidbits at random intervals.

“130 pounds! That dog’s going to weigh more than I do!” and “Needs a firm master who is consistent with the rules!  The only thing that's consist over there is the police presence!”

Not an exaggeration, by the way. The police have been frequent visitors next door. The last time they came, there were not one, not two, not even three, four or five, but SIX police cars on the scene.

“Aggressive toward other animals if not properly socialized!”

“Any dog can be aggressive,” Opie pointed out. “It’s all about the owners.”

“That,” I agreed “is the whole problem: the owners.”

Because I have nothing against Bullmastiffs; they are beautiful dogs and from what I've read, incredibly loyal and usually very sweet. And I'm not against people owning big dogs.   Our Bubba is half Rottweiler and he’s a sweetheart (unless you're the Tru-Green guy). One of our neighbors has a Pit Bull and another has a Doberman. Those dogs are huge yet I still have no problem with them because they’re clearly WELL-TRAINED.

In any case, you might still think this is none of my business, but here's why you're wrong. This, my friends, is the neighbors' fence:

They have since stuffed a pink Halloween pumpkin in between the missing boards but that fallen over wagon wouldn’t even keep my six-pound Maltese in the yard.

"We're getting a new fence!" I screamed at Opie. "We need to replace our chain-link fence with a huge privacy fence that their untrained monster of a dog won't be able to get over!"

Opie calls this kind of announcement "over-reacting" (although usually not out loud) so he sighed and said, “They get a dog and we need a new fence? Why don't we wait to see if there's a problem before you get all worked up?"

“I'm already worked up!" I told him. “And we need a new fence because you don't want to be here the day their dog breaks through their piece of shit excuse for a fence and hurts one of my dogs! You don't want to be here that day because that's the day I'll be going to PRISON!"

And he allowed as how he thought that, in a physical fight with the mob next door, I was much more likely to end up in the hospital.

Which just goes to show you that he has no appreciation for my Ninja skills and cat-like quickness.

“Besides,” I continued. “We don't need to get a privacy fence around the whole yard, just that side.”

We can't only do the one side,” he said in genuine horror. “It’ll look like we're just trying to block them.”

“We are just trying to block them. I've wanted to block them since the day I moved in.”

“It's obnoxious.”

“THEY'RE obnoxious.”

We continued in this vein for awhile but the long and the short of it is, Toby the Handyman came over yesterday, took some measurements and is going to give us a bid for a fence—actually he’s giving us two bids: one for a fence between us and the one side and one for the whole yard because I suspect that Opie is going to put his foot down on this one.

And as soon as it’s finished, I can stop worrying about my dogs and go back to worrying about the neighbor kids themselves and worrying about the welfare of this poor little puppy who is absolutely adorable and deserves a good home.

“Brace yourself,” I told Opie “and start planning because if they start mistreating that dog we might have to, you know, rescue and re-home it.”

“We are NOT stealing the neighbors’ dog,” he said.

“Not if they take care of it,” I agreed.

But I'm not going to lie, I'd kind of like to know how much they paid for the dog so I know if I'll be looking at a misdemeanor or a felony. 

Turtle Gate 2013

It's Super Sunday Sync--and I'm so excited to be guest hosting for the first time! Thanks to Kera , Dawn, and Mail4Rosey for giving me a chance.  To participate in this hop, look below to see all the guidelines and to link your own post!


And, since this is the Sunday Sync, I think I'll flashback to my last Sunday adventure...when the neighbor kids found a turtle.

Just a little three-toed box turtle that had been living in the bushes on the side of their house. They came over to show it to me as soon as I went out to water the garden.

"We're going to keep it!" They told me gleefully.

And it may be a sign of my impending emotional breakdown that I spent the rest of the day and most of the night worrying about the turtle.

See, I didn't know it was a three-toed box turtle when they shoved it in my face.  I came in, did a little bit of Internet research, figured out what it was, and then read that they don't do well in captivity because they are picky eaters...which is also why there is a growing concern about them becoming "locally depleted" in Oklahoma.

Now, please understand, I'm an animal lover but not an animal activist...and if I were 7 and 2 like the neighbor kids, I would have wanted to keep the turtle too.  The problem is, I already spend a lot of time worrying whether or not the neighbor kids are being taken care of--I have gently intervened when they were trying to jump on the trampoline (no guard around it by the way) on their BIKES, when they were trying to create some bizarre waterslide with the slip and slide and the trampoline, and when they were trying to climb over the fence into the other neighbor's yard to play with the "nice" Doberman. These are not children who are well-supervised.

Basically, I figured that, in their care, the poor turtle had the same life expectancy as an ice cream cone.

So, the added stress of worrying about their emotional devastation when they inadvertently killed the turtle and worrying about the turtle himself just about sent me over the edge.

First, I made a few subtle suggestions that they should release the turtle...and that the turtle didn't want to jump on the trampoline...and that the Doberman next door didn't want to be friends with the turtle...and so on.

Then, when that didn't work, I spent a little too much time, in Opie's opinion, peeking out the window at the kids with the turtle.  But that's only because he didn't realize I was just doing recon to see where they were going to keep the turtle when they went in for the night--a large blue bucket.

And I must say that he was fairly unimpressed with my elaborate Turtle Rescue Mission...in fact, he seemed to think it was borderline psychotic.

"It's supposed to storm tonight," I told him.  "What we'll do is wait until the middle of the night, then when it's raining really hard, sneak over and grab the turtle and just put the bucket on its side.  They'll think the storm blew it over...they'll forget about the turtle, the turtle will be safe and--"

"You're losing it," he said.

And flat out refused to take part in what he called Turtle-Gate.

Which made it impossible to implement my plan because I don't really feel comfortable sneaking into the neighbor's backyard without a lookout.

I mean, I wanted to save the turtle and all but I didn't want to get arrested to do it.

Or, considering this IS Oklahoma, shot.

So, this morning, I got up bright and early and went out to water the garden again...and just kept staring at that stupid blue bucket.  No one was up over at the neighbors', as far as I could tell, and the bucket was just sitting there...and I kept debating in my head whether the kids needed this little turtle in their lives, if they would be more devastated if the turtle escaped or if it died, if I had some sort of moral imperative to save a defenseless turtle...

In retrospect, maybe Opie's right and I do obsess about these things a little too much.

In any case, I finally decided that if no one was up by the time I was finished watering the garden that I could take that as a sign that God wanted me to rescue the turtle.

Which now has all my Christian friends shaking their heads at me...yes, I am well aware that we aren't supposed to ask God for signs, much less outline the exact sign we're looking for.  But with the state of the world today, I suspect God has more pressing concerns than my turtle-induced hysteria.  I was trying to save Him some time.

And you know what?

He must have appreciated my efforts because look what was right outside my garden--well away from the well-meaning but dangerous hands of the neighbor kids:

So the turtle is free, I am un-jailed and not shot, Opie is relieved but waiting nervously for my next obsessive freak out, and the neighbor kids are unscathed.  Plus I have new respect for the neighbor kids' grandmother who said "He must have climbed out of the bucket" with a straight face when they asked her what could have happened.

You can't ask for much more than that.

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Not so Neighborly

You know, I have been so caught up in the trials and tribulations of my darling students this year, I had almost forgotten the sublime joy to be found in witnessing a little redneck squabble.
Luckily, though, a fine specimen of the redneck tribe has moved into the house behind mine and, I feel confident, will be providing much entertainment in the months to come.

My first evidence of this was this morning’s comedic episode.

I was out in my backyard, putting up a special anti-squirrel birdfeeder (a trickier task than I realized when I first began) when I heard the unmistakable rumblings of an imminent brawl.
“F*** this!” The woman screamed. “F*** this, and f*** you, and give me back my f***ing Visa. I know you f***ing stole it from my f***ing purse, you hear me, you f***ing thief?”

Since I live a few doors down and I had no trouble distinguishing every beautiful word, I’m pretty sure the f***ing thief heard her loud and clear. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hear his reply but I’m pretty sure it was equally as insulting since about thirty seconds later, a large amount of male clothing was flung out of the back door into the yard.

Clothing that, at the time of this writing, is still decorating their pitiful excuse for a lawn.

The clothing was followed by a furious man who stomped out the door and stormed over to his car (a decidedly un-redneck looking vehicle that I made a mental note to avoid in the future.)

In any case, as the guy was storming out, the woman came skipping around from the front of the house.

Yes, skipping.

Skipping and chanting “You’re not leaving without me!” in a little girl voice that was disturbing on a lot of levels.

If you are thinking that it sounds like the woman had been perhaps been imbibing an alcoholic beverage or two, I would have to say that you are one hundred percent correct. While I am never one to judge (ha ha), I would like to point out the following things that I found disturbing:

A. It was NINE-THIRTY in the morning. I mean, seriously! Who, other than a RAGING ALCOHOLIC is so drunk at NINE-THIRTY that they skip around the yard? (I considered leaning over my fence and sharing this little tidbit but my expertise at Conflict Mediation led me to believe it might have been counter-productive.)

B. The woman outweighs me by an easy fifty pounds yet had no trouble skipping around in Daisy Duke shorts that I couldn’t have gotten on my left leg. In addition, she was wearing a tank top that would have been snug on my five-year-old niece.

For those of you who remember the horrible years that I lived in Cincinnati, let me assure you, the sight was frighteningly reminiscent of the obese alcoholic who set my apartment building on fire and had to be dragged out bare-ass naked.

Anyway, the woman continued skipping around, blocking the man’s exit, at which point he threatened to call the police.

Which, of course, started the oh-so entertaining back and forth repartee that consisted of “You can’t call the police, I’m calling the police! No, I am! No, I am!”

I considered yelling “If you don’t shut up, I’M CALLING THE POLICE, YOU RIDICULOUS REDNECKS!” but again decided it would be counter-productive. After all, I didn’t want to give the two of them a common enemy upon whom to vent their drunken rage.

As the neighborhood expert in Conflict Mediation I, of course, also considered popping over the fence and offering my services but before I could react, the drunken woman pushed the old man out of the way, flung herself in the car, and locked him out.

Ahhh, sweet victory.

I honestly have no idea how long she stayed in the car because as soon as the man started beating on the window in a rage, my ridiculous animal woke up and his finely honed guard dog skills kicked in, which caused him to start barking at the top of his tiny little lungs.
This, of course, threw both the drunks a little off. The man actually jumped a foot and began looking all around for some vicious killer dog.

At which point, I was completely overcome by a bout of hysterical laughter. And since I doubted the rednecks were in the mood to appreciate humor at their own expense, I grabbed my little mongrel and fled to the house.

So, as I said, I don’t know who finally won the Battle of the Buick. All I know for sure is that the car is gone, the clothes are still in the yard, and this is probably not the last I’ll hear from these fabulous new neighbors.