I slowly became aware that somebody was gently yet insistently trying to break my ribs with a little tap-dance.
"Hey stupid" The girl of my dreams lovingly shouted, "Wake up you freakin' moron."
"Ow. OW! Quit it out! I'm up! I'm up. What happened?"
"I'm not sure, being blind and all, but I think you and your retarded, what I can only assume is a cat, attacked me as I walked to the mail box. We got entangled and drug down the street, where you first tried to flirt with me and then smashed your unquestionably teeny brain on a fire hydrant and heroically passed out. Your mongrel cat and my dogs leashes are tangled up around us, and we are trapped here and I can't see the knot to unfasten us so I was hoping that I could convince you wake up AND GET ME OUT OF THIS FREAKIN' MESS!!"
"Oh."
"OH?! Sit up and untangle us already!"
"How do you know there is something wrong with my cat?" I asked as I sat up and surveyed the situation.
"It is tied to my face! It feels like a bag of pointy sticks wrapped in burlap, sounds like a asthmatic rusty 78 Pinto, and smells like I can only assume zombie butt odor does. Now get me untied, or I swear I'll start screaming until the cops show up and swear you were trying to molest me AND my dog."
"OK, ok, you don't have to get all huffy."
So I sat up and began to untangle the four of us, trying to stay away from the business end of her dog, who was on the largish side and didn't appear to be very happy to make my acquaintance. After several minutes, a few growls and one small bite, I managed to get us all freed. As we gathered ourselves I took the opportunity to get a good look at the neighbor, who promptly slapped me in the face.
"Both were for being a perv. Perv."
"I'm not a perv." Anxious to change the subject, "So, a Rottweiler? That seems like an aggressive choice to be a guide dog."
"Yeah, well they closed a junk yard and some charity repurposes guard dogs into service animals. Conan, here does a pretty good job most of the time."
"Conan. After the funny guy on TV?"
"No, Conan, as in the Desroyer, of pretty much everything."
"I see what you mean, he has most of my cat stuffed inside of his mouth."
She immediately started smacking her dog on top of the head to get him to drop my precious Bill, "Spit it out, Conan, that thing will make you sick, it's rotten, spit it out. Oh, that is disgusting." She said, as she pulled Bill out of her dogs slimy maw.
"Here" she thrust the cat in my direction, dripping frothy white ooze, tracing a line from the dogs mouth to the cat and slowly plopping stalactites onto the sidewalk.
Then she turned on her heel, tripped over her dog, got up, grabbed the leash, and stalked back to her house.
"So I didn't catch your name, mine's Fred. Do you want to get some coffee or something?" I yelled at her back.
"Laura," I think she said, and then something that sounded like piss off and then something saltier and more unrepeatable.
"So I'll take a rain check then, shall I?"
Getting no response I headed back to my house, dragging the cat, who being lubed up with dog excretions, slid along rather nicely.
I let Bill out of his kitty harness, who set about the daunting task of decontaminating himself of several pounds of dog spit, and I set down on the couch and realized that the TV still didn't work, and then remembered that I hadn't paid the cable bill and that is why the TV probably didn't work. Before I had thrown the remote through it, I mean. The TV was clearly not going to work with or without cable, while a plastic rectangle protruded from the screen.
I went to the kitchen and got another cup of "coffee", when someone began to bang on the front door. Loudly. Like it had done something terrible and was being punished.
"Who is it?"
"DID YOU TAKE MY FREAKIN' KEYS?!"
"I'm sorry, who is it again?"
"It's Laura from down the street, and after the incident earlier, I can't find my keys, and I looked an... Did you take them?"
more to come...
