Itty Bitty Kitties

2. THAT woman and her giant, unruly beast

2

THAT woman and her giant, unruly beast

Everything happened so fast that it felt like a blur. I sucked in enough air to fill a balloon, but was too startled to scream. Pretty Kitty puffed up to twice her normal size inside her crate. Each strand of her long, white fur seemed to be standing at attention. She opened her mouth as if to hiss and spit, but nothing came out. We must have looked like startled twins with our eyes and mouths wide open, but no sound emerging.

For a moment, I thought that this was how my life and the lives of my two babies were going to end. I was sure that a black bear had jumped into my car and was ready to attack. My short, rather dull life flashed through my head, and the first thought that popped into my mind was that I wished I had been able to meet my unborn child. My arms instinctively cradled my belly in a feeble attempt to protect the life inside it.

The beast buried its head inside the chicken bucket, so I scrambled to reach the door handle in an attempt to escape while the animal was distracted. I struggled to open the door, even as I carefully reached past the furry beast to try to reach my cat’s crate and lift her out of harm’s way.

In my panic, it took a few moments to become aware of the woman, who had jumped out of the red Jeep beside me, and was standing on the passenger-side of my car. When she yelled, something about her serious tone made the beast pause. I froze in place as well.

“Rascal!” she screeched. “That’s a bad boy,” she shook her pointer finger at him.

The animal lifted its head out of the chicken bucket and turned to look at her. I was stunned to realize the black beast wasn’t a bear at all, but a dog… an enormous dog.

Turning her accusatory finger at me, the lady said, “Get that chicken away from him. The bones are bad for him.”

Too shocked to do anything but obey the bossy woman, I snatched the cardboard bucket over to my side of the car.

Once I had a moment to process what had happened, I was irate about the snappy tone she had taken with me. “Is that all you have to say about this?” I splayed my hands out, indicating her huge dog’s invasion of my car.

The driver of the SUV behind us chose that moment to blare his horn at us for not moving, even though the light had turned green. I turned to give him a piercing glare that would have made P.K. proud and shouted, “Really?” He nodded to acknowledge that I had a point and smiled rather sheepishly.

Turning my attention back to the fiasco at hand, I saw the woman opening my passenger side door to let her dog out. “Now, tell this lady you’re sorry for stealing her chicken,” she chastised the animal in a lighthearted, sing-songy voice.

As if understanding her, the black dog turned his forlorn chocolate brown eyes in my direction. I could almost imagine him saying he was sorry, but that the smell of the chicken was too much for him to resist. He would have been cute, if it weren’t for the two long trails of drool hanging from both sides of his saggy mouth. He licked his chops and managed to fling one of the goo trails onto the back of my seat before turning and slowly loping out my car door that the woman was holding open for him, onto the street’s pavement and then up into the Jeep.

I couldn’t blame the animal for his complete lack of manners. It wasn’t his fault he hadn’t been properly trained. It was hers. I narrowed my gaze at the woman who was now closing my door, apparently ready to return to her vehicle without so much as an apology for her pet’s appalling behavior.

“Is that it?” I asked her. The incredulous tone was unmistakable in my voice. “Your dog scares the living daylights out of us, steals my chicken, slimes my car, and you’re just going to go on your merry way as if nothing happened?”

“Oh,” she held up her pointer finger as if suddenly remembering something. Turning back to her Jeep, she retrieved her purse and dug around in it before handing me a twenty-dollar bill. “For the chicken,” she clarified when I gawked at her.

The man in the SUV behind us lost his patience again and chose that moment to squeal around my car, missing my back bumper by mere inches. He ran the light, which had recently returned to being red and almost caused an accident in the process. The other woman and I both clinched up as we watched him narrowly miss getting hit by a car travelling through the intersection with a green light.

“Well, we better get out of the road before we do cause an accident,” the woman said dismissively.

I couldn’t believe she was ready to just proceed with her day as if nothing had happened. When she reached down to pick up the bucket of chicken, I nearly came unglued.

“You’re taking my chicken?!?” The gall of this woman was unbelievable.

She turned back to me as if not comprehending why I would be upset. “You’re not going to eat it, are you?” She sounded so rational, and for some reason that made me feel even more rage towards her.

“Of course not,” I snapped. After all, her dog had drooled all over it when he leaped into my car and shoved his massive head into the bucket.

“Well, I paid for it,” she answered, making my blood boil again with that blasted rationality. “We are heading to obedience class, so my sweet Rascal will deserve a special treat for all his hard work.” She had turned her head to look at the beast that was now sitting in the driver’s seat of the Jeep. His pink tongue lolled out to the side of his mouth and he was panting like it was a hundred degrees, rather than the comfortable seventy-four it actually was.

“You’re going to need a special treat after all that hard work, aren’t you, sweet boy?” She was making kissy lips as she talked to the animal.

“So, you’re going to give him the chicken as a treat after what he did?” I asked, completely taken aback at the woman’s complete lack of pet parenting skills.

“Oh, I’ll pick it off the bones first,” she reassured me, obviously totally misunderstanding my problem with her plan.

“But he jumped over here and stole it from me,” I tried to make her see the issue.

“And he’s very sorry. Aren’t you, boy?” She was still talking to the dog, not me.

He answered her with a single, loud “Woof!” She squealed and clapped, then looked at me, like I should also be proud of and impressed by the unruly animal.

Deciding that I needed to get as far away from them as possible, I said loudly, “I certainly don’t want to keep you two from getting to obedience class.” It was a passive-aggressive statement, but I hoped she would get the hint about how much they both needed the training.

“It’s our first one,” she revealed as she waved and smiled like we were old friends and tried (rather unsuccessfully) to get the dog to move out of her seat.

“No way,” I mumbled sarcastically as I put my car in gear and gunned the gas pedal to get through the green light and as far away as possible from that crazy woman and her mischievous dog.

Looking down, I realized that P.K. was still puffed up in an angry ball. “It’s okay, baby. At least he didn’t seem to notice you down there.” I tried to soothe her. “We will never have to see those two yahoos again,” I promised my beloved cat.

I had no idea how far from the truth that particular promise would turn out to be.