Sep 15 2007
The Sign Of the Dog, Part III
It was 2 AM.
It was 2 freakin‘ A in the freakin’ M.
I was not happy. I was not happy to be ringing the doorbell of my upstairs neighbors.
I jam my finger on the old doorbell. Hard. Repeatedly.
I finally hear footsteps. Mr. Set 4 opens the door. Wives don’t answer the door. Not at 2 in the freakin’ AM. Husbands do.
I say, “I’m sorry to wake you but the puppies have been yipping all night long and I can’t sleep.”
Mr. Set 4 replies, “Oh. I’m so sorry. I will go down right now and take care of them.”
I say, “My bedroom is right next to the garage. Their yipping goes right through the wall. Can’t you do something?”
Mr. Set 4 says, “We can’t hear them from upstairs. I will try to do something about it…I’m so sorry.”
I say, “OK.”
Did things get better?
What do you think?
A few days later I heard music.
Mr. Set 4, my poetic looking house painter of a neighbor had placed an old portable radio on top of the wooden lid that covered half of the makeshift puppy pen.
I guess he thought that soft rock would sooth the savage beast. It seemed to work on the puppies. I had yet to feel soothed.
The Universe had officially kicked me in the rear. I was now uncomfortable.
The second batch of puppies was one in a long line of batches. Mr. and Mrs. Set 4 had decided to supplement their income by selling these goggle-eyed yipping bundles of joy.
The basement began to smell of puppy poop that no amount of soft rock music could cover.
The yard, never much more than a patch of grass surrounded by overgrown hedges and struggling flowers, was now a poop-infested stinking wasteland.
The photo below is the horror that lurked just outside my door. The smell was worse.
My front door was now a doorway to hell. Great. My stairway led up to my neighbors. No halos to be found up there.
My life resembled this bumper sticker: Where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?
I was trapped in my apartment and the only way out was through the garden door.
Opening the garden door was easy. Scaling the wall of my fears was hard.
I obviously had to move. My landlord had no compelling reason to improve the situation - he knew the rent was cheap. The issue was that I didn’t want to move to another more expensive apartment. The rents were high enough in the areas I wanted to live in that I may as well buy a home.
The thought of having a mortgage, the thought of debt, was scary. The thought of making such a big decision and perhaps making a mistake, was tapping into a shitload of fears. Which were now manifesting in pile after pile in my yard.
I began learning about mortgages, interest rates, what to look for in a home. I searched online. I checked books out of the library. I asked friends for advice.
I used every delaying tactic at my disposal. Work helped because I’d be on the road and could forget about my home situation.
But the puppies kept coming. Crate after yipping crate of them.
Mr. and Mrs. Set 4 began showing their annoyance at my waking them up to tell them that their puppies were yipping.
I thought about reporting them. I was pretty sure that what they were doing was illegal in some way, that they at least needed a permit. However, the reality was that I should move.
In the mean time, I decided to try to work things out through Mr. O’Apostrophe.
Mr. O’A had dropped by to check on the puppies. Yeah, he was in on it, too. I went to speak with him. I thought I had figured a solution to the yipping problem. As usual, Mr. O’A viewed my approach with stiff posture and bristling gray eyebrows.
Our conversation went as follows:
Ms. Q: Hi, J (I called him by his first name)
Mr. O’A: [grunt]
Ms. Q: I wanted to talk to you about the puppies. Now, I understand that your daughter and son-in-law are trying to make a little extra money by selling them.
Mr. O’A: [death stare]
Ms. Q: Well, I’m okay with that and really, I do understand but the barking is keeping me up all night.
Mr. O’A: [crosses arms over chest]
Ms. Q: I thought that instead of my waking up your daughter or son-in-law to tell them when the dogs are barking, they could install a baby monitor!
Mr. O’A: What?! They are just trying to make a living! They can’t afford a … baby monitor!!
Ms. Q: Well, I am not getting much sleep with all the barking.
Mr. O’A: Wear earplugs.
I stopped talking. I stopped THINKING.
I literally saw red and knew what people meant when they say that the blood roared in their ears.
I was enraged.
Mr. O’A may have said, “Wear earplugs” but what he meant was, “Fuck you.”
I didn’t say anything. I just looked at him.
Fighting him wasn’t going to change my situation. I had to change.
I left Mr. O’A. I had a wall to scale.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Damn, I got red eyes just reading about this thing.
But then I scrolled up and saw the picture of the puppies again and I was fine. Look, one of them is smelling his own fart.
Wow that story is getting brutal. This seems like a whole experience that really is horrendous to go through, but it also seems like one that teaches you many things about yourself and life.
I definitely want to hear the rest.
PITS: It takes a lot to get me angry. Mr. O’A took me to a place where I don’t like to go. Luckily, I haven’t had to go there again and really, I hope that I’ve become more mellow and understanding as I age because anger takes a LOT of energy. Blech.
How does this match up with your love of pit bulls? Do you love all dogs?
Jill: I’m glad that I think those puppies look cute to me now. When I first took those photos (of course there was the smell) I really could not stand them. I knew it wasn’t them, it was my neighbors who were the cause of all my grief and of course, ultimately *I* was the reason for my being stuck where I was but back then, those puppies and their needy brown eyes were really annoying to me.
Derek Wong: I had actually forgotten most of the details but have always remembered the “wear earplugs” part of it. I wasn’t planning to write such a long story but that’s the way it’s turning out! I was able to reread some of my old emails and I had written (whined and complained) about this situation to a couple of friends. Until blogging I used to write these looooong emails to friends and now … I run out of words.
Since I’ve lived to tell the tale, you know that all will be well!
Why not invite some Philipino looking friends over and comment how tasty the dogs look?
First - “Oh STEVE!!” that was a rough one!
Second - I will beat up Mr. O’a for you, and then adopt all the dogs and take them home to Hollydale.
Third - Buy the house…be impulsive.
Fouth - Wear eye shadow, lipstick, and get a BIG boofy hairdoo
Howdydoodallydoo MsQ, no girl likes to smell poo. I hope your nights improve.
Your BLOGOSPERE pally, SpeedyCat Barkindale ^^-
HMTKSteve: I dunno. They probably would be succulent morsels and I admit to having “shish-ka-pup” fantasies at the time but I have doubts that they’d taste like chicken.
Speedcat:
Regarding (2): You definitely have the size, speed and agility of someone who earned his black belt via an online Kat-rate course. I think you could take on Mr. O’A with a single fist-on-fist hammer blow on his head (It’s a move taken from The 3 Stooges) …kneeling.
Mr. O’A was not much taller than I. I think we had the same inseam. He was probably 5-four. The guy was always on the defensive. Not sure why. I do know that if he could, he’d try to pull a fast one.
Regarding (3): The house, as ancient as it is (circa 1920s I think) is way outside my current price range. I don’t do impulsive, especially not when it comes to money.
regarding (4): been there, done that.
Re Mr. O’A always being on the defensive - one possible reason is Short Man’s Disease. Some folks that are below average height are not fine with it. They deal with it by trying to compensate in some way.
This has definitely gotten interesting.
Whoa… I’ve heard of solutions but to respond like that is crazy. I don’t know if I would have taken it so well. Perhaps if the puppies started to disappear one by one they would get the hint. Who knows?
BTW… Nice pic. How appropriate. LOL
ack: I did wonder at some type of Napoleonic thing (Short Man’s Complex) but…I thought he was more Jack Russell Terrier without the charm and the house training.
UT: “Wear earplugs” was NOT the response I was expecting. I doubt he would have said that to you. Mr. O’A was essentially a coward.
Yeah, the disappearing puppy act was suggested as a possible solution. One black-humored friend would send me these sick fantasy scenarios that involved my upstairs neighbor knocking on my door (I had no doorbell) and asking me a question. He wouldn’t include the question, only my response. To give you an example, here’s one of my responses:
Ms. Q: Ice pick? I was wondering why it had gotten so quiet.
Glad you like the photo. Whacky, huh?
Oh my goodness! Cute puppies… you brave soul. I would have smacked Mr. O’A, or something.
Maybe you should have purchased some bigger dogs and kept them near the puppies.
Big dogs have a way of keeping little dogs quiet. Or, they could have barked even louder that your neighbors understood.
If nothing, you should have moved to plan be and made them vicious and scary to be around.
That way you could have told your neighbor, once he confronts you about them, to grow some balls and stop wining.
You think? Oh, and sorry for calling you a baby bitch blogger, you’re really not. I kinda like you.
I have a small dog, a shitzu. I have actually trained it not to yap at all. It yapped for one night. Then I learned that it was afraid of the dark as a puppy so I would put him in my warm bathroom at night with the lights on until he grew out of it.
He barked at me exactly once when he was about four months old. That was the last bark I ever heard out of him. I live in a first floor apartment with people going up and down loudly all day. Dog just looks at the door quizzically, looks at me, and goes back to eating my socks.
He doesn’t yap. But he does eat my socks. It was a trade off.
I love your picture of hell.
Sue: I’m the type that gets very quiet when angry. Very-very quiet. Visions of mayhem may dance in my head but … they serve no purpose to act on them unless you want to be served papers at a later date. Or time. Better just to remove myself from the situation. Plus, I am small. Not much good at smacking people. I have raised my fist at someone and he pointed at it, laughed, and said, “What a cute fist!” Sheesh.
Get More Traffic: Pets weren’t allowed in my rental agreement. I’m actually allergic to pet dander although I may no longer be. Lately I’ve been around dogs and cats and haven’t had much problem. I didn’t think you could outgrow an allergy to pet dander but maybe I have.
I did have the fantasy of “using the little dogs as bait to catch bigger dogs” but I seldom blame animals - it’s the owners who are at fault.
I did read your comment where you called me a bbb in HMTKSteve’s blog. I admit I burst into tears and cried, “Nobody loves me! Nobody loves me!” and “Why is he being so mean to me?”
Bad times. Seriously bad times.
Actually, I wasn’t sure since I’m not familiar with your blog or your “tone” if you were teasing me or dissing me. I gave you the benefit of the doubt since your avatar looks sarcastic.
Apology accepted!
SaraDevil: I had to look your dog up. Now I know what type of breed I call “the little mop dogs” are.
That is incredible you trained it not to yap at all! It’s probably easier for you, too, what with people going in and out all day.
You sound like a very responsible dog owner! My guess is that you’re a very considerate, respectful person as well.
All the dog owners I’ve met who pick up after their dog, leash in their dogs when you approach (if you’re a stranger) and in general respect that fact that some people are frightened of dogs, seem to be “good people.”
I can see you must read the text I associate with my photos! Sometimes I amuse myself with them but you’re the first who’s mentioned it. I thought that the pop-up message might not work for everyone when they hover their mouse over the image.
Could he just die! The bastard. You could have called the Humane Society or something and got these people into trouble. Earplugs? Unacceptable.
Ricardo: I have never been so pissed in my life. Well, in recent memory. It was freaky. I was tempted to call some type of agency but really, I may have won a battle but lost a war.
I admit I was also a bit chicken to call anyone. I’m not one for big hassles and standing on my principles. I hope I would be for some bigger issue but in this case, I didn’t think it was worth it. I knew that really, I had to move out. Fighting would have just delayed the inevitable.